


It's All Painfully Real, Mr. Freeman

by micer2012



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Black Mesa Sweet Voice, Canon-Typical Violence, POV Alternating, but now tommy's just kinda sad. hes still the villain though :(, originally "tommy is the villian instead of benrey au", tommy voice: i realized and then i couldnt stop realizing mr freeman !, unreality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24882238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micer2012/pseuds/micer2012
Summary: Diverging from Act 3: Part 2, Tommy takes Gordon's ambush a lot more seriously. He's scared of the rest of the science team and thinks he and Gordon should just try to make it out on their own, and when he realizes things about Black Mesa and the world that they're in, he doesn't react well to the curtain being peeled back.
Relationships: Benrey & Tommy Coolatta, Tommy Coolatta & Gordon Freeman, benrey/gordon and bubby/coomer a little but just in the background they're just like that
Comments: 34
Kudos: 139





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! this is my first time ever actually publishing on ao3. i wrote this all just on a google doc for my own sake but it made my brother cry so i get to publish it here too. tell me if there's something i forgot to tag or if i should put Per chapter tags or something and i will i dont know Aooo etiquette  
> sorry if my way of typing is annoying, i got autisms and im gonna make it everyone elses problem  
> also! if any of you freaks who write nsfw hlvrai stuff is reading this go read something else. im a minor this isnt for you

Gordon opened his eyes, and the only thing he knew for certain was that he was in pain. He shut his eyes closed again, and winced. What.. what had just happened? Where was he now? His mind raced- ah. He had been ambushed. Benrey and Bubby and everyone. They had... fucking ambushed him. They had sold him out, he had been pinned down, t- 

Ah. Ah. He didn’t have a right arm. He didn’t have a right arm. That took him.. Probably longer to realize then it should have. That was- yeah, that was where the Pain was coming from. Or at least, the main place... The rest of his body wasn’t feeling exactly _great_ either. 

They had ambushed him. They had cut his fucking- Arm off, Jesus, What was he.. What was he supposed to do? Where was he even supposed to go? Did Black Mesa even have any doctors that were still alive after this whole.. This whole apocalypse?

He gripped his chest, remaining hand curling into a fist against the thick metal of the HEV suit. He needed to collect himself. He looked around- He was in some kind of.. Trash compactor?? Maybe? He wasn’t in the actually dangerous part, it seemed. They hadn’t even bothered to dispose of his body correctly, huh? He wasn’t sure yet if he thought that was a good thing or not.

Gordon dragged himself to the wall, and tried to compose himself. He had to get.. Somewhere. Right? If the military spotted him crawling around Black Mesa like one of the headcrabs, he was probably dead. He was probably dead if they spotted him in any way, period. Maybe he was dead meat, just regardless. He was losing a lot of blood. 

But he couldn’t just sit here and bleed out... Either he was gonna die here, or he was gonna take the like, 2% chance of not dying. He had to.. Find someone. Someone who could help. Hell if he had any idea who _that_ was, though.

As Gordon dragged himself through the vent system, (safer than just going out in the open, probably. Maybe), he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He caught the sound of what sounded like someone.. Crying? Maybe? It was _someone_ , and that was enough of a danger. 

There was an opening in the vent a few feet from him.. Green light emanated from the hole. He dragged himself towards it and peeked through the opening, trying not to be seen, an-

Tommy. It was Tommy. It was Tommy? Ok alright, what did that mean, was h- He was crying. The scientist was leaning against the wall, sitting with his knees pulled up to his face and his arms curled tight around them. And he was crying. Gordon couldn’t see his face from here, but there wasn’t anyone else that the noise could be coming from. He was crying?

Ok. Ok. What does this mean? Tommy had been part of the group when they had ambushed him. He’d been in on it, probably. Gordon’s mind raced as he tried to remember the scene before, when the lights had gone out.. Tommy hadn’t _seemed_ like he was in on it. He had cried out for them to stop at some point during that ambush.. Maybe he hadn’t been involved directly. Gordon wasn’t gonna take any chances, though. Tommy had shown himself to be.. Well, capable. Capable of shooting someone point blank through the skull, just like the rest of them.

Gordon was sitting up there in the vent, looking around the room and trying to think of a plan, when suddenly he heard the vent start to creak. There had been a hole in the vent already, and his weight here- yeah, yeah that probably wasn’t good. Gordon looked to see the metal below him start to shake, and before he knew it the metal had caved and the vent had collapsed, and he was falling, falling directly, down into the room.

Shit. Shit. He hit the ground with the sound of a dumbbell dropping to the floor, and he knew Tommy had obviously spotted him by now. Stealth was absolutely out of the question, if it had even been in the question in the first place. This was probably the end- Tommy would alert the other guards, or maybe even take a gun out and shoot him himself! That would be a hilarious way to go out, wouldn’t it? Shot by the guy he had taught to hold a gun in the first place. 

He heard footsteps running towards him, and Gordon braced himself. He had had a good run, right? He had had a run, that was for certain. He felt slender hands picking him off the ground hurriedly, moving around his limbs like an old, ceramic doll that wouldn’t stand up by himself, a-

Ah. Tommy was hugging him. Gordon opened his eyes again, looking over Tommy’s shoulder. He was still crying, it sounded like. Gordon wasn’t- Gordon wasn’t sure what to do. He thought he would’ve been dead by now. 

Was Tommy saying something? He couldn’t.. He couldn’t make it out. Tommy sounded like he was.. Trying to, at least. 

“I.. I..” A pause. Tommy’s grip grew tighter.

“I’m.. I’m _sorry_ Mr. Freeman, I, I Didn’t.. I didn’t think…….” Gordon just stared into the ground where his eyes naturally fell, pretty much limp in the scientist’s arms. He was still.. In shock, maybe. Pain. Yeah. A hug was like, #560 on the list of things that he thought was gonna happen to him a minute ago.

Tommy let go of the hug and brought them face-to-face, arms still on Gordon’s shoulders.

“I didn’t.. I didn’t know they would do that. I didn’t..” This was the first full view Gordon had gotten of Tommy... He looked horrible. Both from crying, obviously and.. He looked roughed up. Not as much as Gordon was, _obviously_ , but it looked like his nose had been bleeding, or something like that. “I should have done more. I.. I should’ve stopped them. I’m sorry.”

Tommy’s fingers tensed up on Gordon’s shoulders, and then he let go to wipe his face on the sleeve of his labcoat. The two were sitting on the floor of the large industrial room like kindergarten kids, lighted by some mysterious green slime. Hilariously, the slime was the most familiar feeling thing here to Gordon.

He realized he should probably say _something_ , not just let Tommy sit here and cry for like 10 minutes.

“I.. uh. It’s. Okay Tommy. I mean- I mean, it’s not okay, I’m doing. I’m doing not great! Losin’ a lot of blood, probably! But uh. It’s done now. It’s not like you can.. Un ambush. Me.” Gordon looked up, realizing then that that was probably not. Great consoling. But he didn’t care, it wasn’t his fault to care about the feelings of somebody who helped try to murder him!! None of those bastards had cared about him, why should he be the one to still be attached.. Well, he told himself that, but seeing Tommy here crying Was making him feel bad. Quite bad, but he wasn’t gonna say anything about it. Harsh truths, buddy!

“Here, l-.. Let me… Let me patch that up. I brought- I brought a med kit! I found it, I brought bandages, they-they tried to stop me from grabbing the med kit. But I hid it, and I- I ran away-” Tommy went to grab something from his labcoat pocket, and Gordon flinched.

Just a med kit. Just a med kit, of course. Tommy opened up the med kit, and brought out some gauzes. Gordon was pretty sure you weren’t just supposed to put the gauzes on the open wound alone, but he wasn’t gonna say anything here. He Did want to stop bleeding. He stood still as Tommy started to wrap the spot where his arm used to be, motions practiced, like he was on autopilot. Gordon was on a bit of an autopilot too.

“I.. I wasn’t with them. Or I mean- I knew they were planning something, but I didn’t know anything about th-the military, or that.. They were gonna..” He trailed off. “Kill me? That they were gonna try to _kill me_? And cut my arm off?” Gordon spat. Tommy nodded, solemnly.

Gordon sighed. He should.. He didn’t need to yell at Tommy. The man obviously felt horrible about it, and he wasn’t even the one who had helped plan to Attack him.. Tommy was a friend. Tommy was still an ally, at least.

Tommy backed away, grabbing the med kit and closing it again. “D.. Do you feel any better Mr. Freeman? Is there other parts of you injured?” Obviously. Obviously, his whole body was aching just from that fall from the vents at least.. But he bit back the urge to say that. He had yelled at Tommy enough, he was Trying to help. “Yeah, I’m. Feeling as good as I can, bud.”

He did feel a bit better. Tommy hadn’t just put bandages on the wound and called it a day like Gordon... assumed he would, he used the vials and shit in the little box. Gordon didn’t know what was in a med kit, that wasn’t what he studied in college.. Whenever he used a ‘med kit’ here for the past week, he had just stuck his hand in it and then felt better and that was good enough. He assumed they just had like, Spare Blood in them. Maybe some kind of, painkiller paste? Was that a thing?

Gordon sighed, and tried to stand up again. Tommy tensed up as he stood, like he was ready to catch him if he fell backwards to the ground again, but Gordon was on his feet. Steady enough.

“We.. Uh, I guess we should go now. Go.. there isn’t a doctor? You said you stole that med kit?” Tommy nodded, looking up at him. “Yeah.” “Oh.. okay. Where..” Gordon paused again. “Should we go find the others? Dr. Coomer and all them?”

Tommy’s eyes went wide, and he suddenly got to his feet. He tensed up his hands, holding them close to his chest.

He looked.. Incredibly panicked.

“NO, W- We We can’t do that, We can’t go find them.. We..”

Gordon had stepped back a little when Tommy had suddenly stood up, and his hand was raised defensively in front of him. “They.. they tried to kill you Mr. Freeman! We.. We can’t meet them again!”

“You tried to kill me too. Or at least, I mean you were complic-” “ **_I_ ** _._ ”

Gordon flinched as Tommy raised his voice- Tommy saw him and stopped, and when he spoke again he was quiet, mumbling almost.

“I.. I did. I guess I did. I.. I should have done more. I-I’m sorry Mr. Fr-”

“Okay, okay its fine. Don’t.. Don’t just start sobbing on me again.”

Tommy was looking at the ground. Gordon felt bad, but the sudden change of mood, Tommy’s yelling had. Startled him. Gordon was the one who had actually been attacked, why was _Tommy_ so shaken up?

“We.. we can’t meet with them again. What if they.. attack you?”

"That’s what _I_ was thinking when I saw you again, and that turned out fine.” “I..”

“I know. But- But I know _I’m_ not evil, Mr. Freeman.. I know that _I’m_ not gonna try to.. to attack you again… Bubby was yelling! About how you deserved it, and shit !! We... I don’t want to meet with them again. If that’s.. The same to you.” Tommy’s face was still to the ground, and he was fidgeting with his hands.

Gordon sighed. “Yeah, I guess meeting up with ol Backstabbin’ Benrey isn’t the best idea. It’s..” He paused, and then put his arm onto Tommy’s shoulder, making Tommy flinch a bit, and then relax. “We won’t meet up with them again if you don’t want to, okay? We can find our own way out.” Tommy smiled faintly. “Yeah.”

“You.. you lead the way, okay buddy? I can’t.. I can’t do much back here, you escort me to a place where hopefully. We can find a way out of this place.” Tommy nodded, and Gordon took his hand off. “Okay.”

And then they were off. Gordon was more than happy to stay in the back while Tommy did the shooting, as the two wandered through Black Mesa’s seemingly endless halls. He had asked Tommy to lead him and Tommy had got to it, but he didn’t know if Tommy was actually taking him anywhere in particular or just trying to find an exit. Maybe just trying to get as far away from where the others were? That too. That too, that.. Fear Tommy had over the others.. 

That had surprised Gordon, not gonna lie! The group had been shooting the heads off of innocent people for like days at this point, and Tommy hadn’t said anything then. Them.. ‘attacking Gordon’, surely he and Tommy would be able to fend them off if it came to that, right? He _knew_ Tommy had been friends with them too, and they seemed to be friendly with him.. Even.

Gordon gritted his teeth. Benrey. Benrey. Tommy hadn’t mentioned him during that conversation, but the two were friends, right? It seemed that way, which confused Gordon more than words could manage. He wished he was still able to hold a gun, just so that he could blow the brains out of Benrey the MOMENT he saw that little blue bastard again. 

“M.. Mr. Freeman-” Gordon looked up. He had been absorbed in his.. Benrey hating thoughts, and was just following Tommy on autopilot, pretty much. They had just swam through a tunnel or something, where were they now? He used his hand to hoist himself out of the little pool- Tommy was standing up in the room already, and he wasn’t the only person in the room. Far, far from it.

Gordon looked up, paralyzed, at the room full of one, absolutely terrified looking Tommy, and about 300 clones of the one, the only, Dr. Harold Coomer. Tommy’s hands were shaky as he clenched his gun, finger pressing down on the trigger, but otherwise he didn’t move. He couldn’t, probably. Nothing moved for what felt like an eternity. Then the clone’s mouths opened, contorting into a horribly unnatural looking triangular jaw, in a cacophony of ‘ _Hello Gordon’_ s. Gordon felt like his ears were gonna start bleeding. 

And then the gunfire started.


	2. Chapter 2

Horrid noises, gory body parts flying around the room like it was a blender, and Gordon currently trying _desperately_ to get out of his little blood filled soup vent were all contributing factors to making the experience of having to fight 300 clones of Dr. Harold P. Coomer fucking horrible.

There were a few other things of course, the fact that they were all trying to grab Gordon and push him farther into the water, the fact that they all looked like and talked exactly in Coomer’s voice, like they were taunting Gordon for having even One person he allowed himself to trust, and the fact that even with Tommy’s help from earlier, he had entered this fight with his whole body in ENOUGH pain. But all the things making this one of the worst experiences in Gordon’s life (right up there with the. You know. You know. The arm. I'm sure you know, the arm) didn’t hold a candle to what emotions Tommy was probably feeling right then. Seeing a Single member of the science team seemed like it would have been enough to make him shut down again or something, and. Well. They Sure Had Run Into A Member(s) Of The Science Team, Huh?

He didn’t seem to be crying though, from what Gordon could see. Which admittedly wasn’t much, trying to tread water in a shitty little vent pool. Tommy’s feet remained planted on the ground, and he fired shot after shot into the bodies, not even needing to reload. He didn’t move an inch- he could’ve been mistaken for a turret. He looked directly forward, away from Gordon’s sight, and bits of blood were sticking to his face and his coat.

But, he seemed to be taking care of the clones reliably. That was good, that was very good.. The sheer Quantity of Coomers in the room was steadily going down, thanks to Tommy. Trying to block out the noise of the fire and the Coomer Cacophony, Gordon was able to crawl out of the pit, past the clones, and give Tommy a quick thumbs up before turning the corner to try to see if there was a way out. He wasn’t sure if Tommy understood what he was doing- or if he had even seen him leave. He seemed to be pretty… zoned out, just focusing on firing lead into the bodies and keeping his ears closed. Well, that was probably for the best.

Gordon made it out of the room, up the stairs, and the hallways up ahead seemed empty. He waited for a minute to listen... No one ahead. And as he listened he heard the sounds of the gun fire quiet down in the other room too- Tommy must have gotten all of the clones, all on his own. Gordon made a note to thank him later.

As he made his way back to the main room, he saw one corpse that wasn’t.. Ragdolling, for lack of a better word, a body covered in blood and leaning against a wall. Leaning against a wall, that was odd, the fact it didn’t just slump over like the others. Gordon approached it, put out his hand warily.. Warm. Still warm, was this one-

This one was probably the real Dr. Coomer, the first one, Gordon just needed t-

Tommy ran out of nowhere, gun in one hand, and gripped Gordon’s surviving hand with the other.

He kept running, dragging Gordon down the whole hall and around the corner, Gordon trailing along and barely being able to keep his footing in the heavy suit. Tommy was able to pretty much pull him one handed, while he was in the full suit?? Maybe he didn’t give him enough credit. Though, Gordon had probably lost a bit of weight due to the.. Lack of one of his hands. 

But, but. Why had Tommy- Why had Tommy just. Grabbed him. Just yanked him away without a second thought, he was about to talk to Dr. Coomer-

Tommy practically threw the two into a sideroom, and then stationed himself by the doorway. Gordon looked up to see Tommy breathing in and out erratically, almost hyperventilating, and looking down the hall, towards the pile of corpses. Tommy closed and locked the door with a Click, and then turned to face Gordon.

“Tommy. Tommy, Tommy, WHAT were yo-”

“What were _you_ doing, Mr. Freeman?! I, I know that you. Don’t have a gun, you can’t fight back right now! And.. Getting, getting close to the enemy- Close enough for them to.. Grab you, to grab you and pull out their own gun or choke you to death. The.. the Second I leave the room! You’re just immediately running into danger, Directly!”

Gordon just looked at him. Shocked that Tommy would interrupt him to go on a.. rant, partly, and partly. Pissed. He was pissed a little to hear Tommy telling him about teammates running into danger and getting themselves killed, teammates being _unreliable_.

“Oh. Oh, you think I’M a danger to _YOU_? That I’m dragging the group FUCKIN’ down? You’re gonna try to get rid of me too, like Bubby did, aren't you, you were just waiting, waiting your time until you got me alone in here- I’ve, I’ve seen you with that gun dude, I was. I was right this whole time! I was right this whole time, I shouldn’t have let you fucking see me-” 

“What?? What are you..” Tommy paused. “In all due respect Mr. Freeman, what are you Fucking talking about??? I’m. Listen, I’m.”

Tommy looked down to his hands. Drenched in blood along with pretty much every article of clothing he was wearing, they were shiny in the light of the cheap ceiling lamp of this break room, reflecting like a car’s new paint job.

“Let’s.. Okay, Let’s calm down. I don’t want to yell.” Tommy’s voice sounded shaky.

“I don’t want to.. Yell either. Okay?” “..Okay.”

The two sat in silence.

“Okay. Mr. Freeman, I.. I shouldn’t have grabbed you. But, I, I didn’t want you to be attacked again. And I was filled- filled with energy from the. Gun shooting.”

“That’s called adrenaline, bud.” “Adrenaline. F.. fear also. I think.” 

Gordon sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry for yelling too. It’s just.. I want to go talk to that Coomer. It was different from all the others, I don’t think it w-” _“What??”_

Calm moment over, back to tension again. Tommy had backed away from him, eyes wide. Or well, Gordon assumed they were, Tommy’s face was.. Covered in blood, a painted streak right over his eyes, not unlike when they had to make him use the medic station back on Day 1. But even without being able to actually see his eyes, Gordon knew he was looking at him like he was crazy.

“What?? Why would you- why would you want to go back? Even.. You want to interact with him _more_ knowing that he’s the one who tried to kill you???”

“Tommy, I. I do NOT know why you are so caught up on that!! Literally, I don’t! Listen to me here, you ALL have killed people. I’ve killed people. You did, Bubby did, B- Coomer did, we’re. We’re PAST the point of feeling bad about that.” Tommy just looked at him.

“Wh.. Mr. Freeman, what-what people have I killed?”

“What? MANY people. MANY people Tommy, we’ve all s-”

“But- But those people aren’t.. They come back. I’ve seen Dr. Coomer and Dr. Bubby do it, we can shoot them but they come back they're not _dead_ , they always come b-”

“ _What_??? I think they are the only two who can do that. I mean.. Yeah, I think that’s just them. You’ve killed people, you’ve shot like 4 scient-”

“Wh.. No, well I mean it wasn’t.. That didn’t... _count_ , I-”

Gordon gritted his teeth. “Stop playing with me. Stop dancing around the bush, we all killed people, alright?? That’s something we did, and we’re probably gonna do it a lot more before we get out of this hellhole. I.. I forgive Coomer enough to want to go see if he can help, like.. Like I forgave you. If that’s Dr. Coomer back there, I want him on our team again so we don’t fucking die. Okay?”

Tommy just looked straight ahead. 

Gordon considered waving a hand in front of his face, but then Tommy looked back to Gordon.

“You ready to go now, Tommy? You done with that hold-up thing?”

“..I. I don’t know.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go talk to Dr. Coomer now, and see if he’ll help us.”

Tommy’s hands tightened. “Oh.. kay. I’m gonna.. I’ll follow you, Mr. Freeman. And keep.. Keep my gun ready.” 

“Okay. You do that.”

Gordon walked forward to go open the door again, and pat Tommy’s shoulder with his good hand. Tommy pulled away, leaving Gordon’s hand to the air.

“D. Don’t do that.” Tommy watched him, wide-eyed. He was on edge still, flighty like a cat.

“Allllrighty, man. No pats from Gordon, got that.”


	3. Chapter 3

There were 2 possibilities in Tommy’s mind, and he didn’t particularly like either of them.

Either he had.. All of them had, but _he had_ killed people, and not just people. Scientists who worked here, just like him, people who had studied their whole lives, lived through life, felt love, and then been killed by one of their bullets. He had been.. Something told Tommy he had been in the HR department, he Knew these people. He knew the people he had worked with, studied beside, befriended.. But he didn’t know these people. He didn’t seem to have any memories of them. He couldn’t even remember their names. He was horrible, wasn’t he?

And then there was the second possibility, that.. He hadn’t done that, or it hadn’t been real.. Surely everyone else hadn’t been just.. Merry about killing people if it was real, right? They.. he had just gone along with what they were doing, they had all been fine with it. They wouldn’t have done that if it had actually mattered, right? It must have been a lie. Or a joke, that he and Gordon weren’t in on. He wanted to cling to that option, he did, but even he knew he was just trying desperately to make excuses. To explain how it couldn’t have _happened_ like that.

He had killed people. He had killed people. Gordon thought that was ‘a weird thing to get hung up about’- Was it? Was it weird? He didn’t feel like.. He didn’t feel like him ‘acting weird’ when he realized he was a murderer was an inappropriate reaction. Gordon certainly didn’t seem to get hung up about it. Coomer either- they were traveling with him again now, Dr. Coomer. Tommy hadn’t said anything to him, and didn’t particularly want to.. Just stayed silent as the 3 walked through the compound together.

Why didn’t he feel anything for these people? The people he and everyone else had killed? He couldn’t even think what they looked like- it seemed to just be the same 3 or so faces, over and over again, blending together. But he knew they didn’t all have the same face or anything, that was stupid, sure Coomer had clones so that made sense for him and Bubby had.. _Something_ was up with Bubby, but the fact that the faces of his colleagues, of his friends, all.. Blended together. Was probably not a good sign. He was a monster, wasn’t he?

“Rest! Rest time, everybody gather ‘round, I gotta. Sit down for a bit. Tommy, do you still have that med kit?” It took a while for Tommy to snap back to the present as Gordon addressed him- he quietly took the med kit out of his pocket and handed it to Gordon. He didn’t look at Dr. Coomer.

“Hey. I- I’m gonna go on a walk. Is that okay?” Tommy’s throat felt weird saying something, it felt like he hadn’t talked in days. Gordon looked up at Tommy, confused.

“A walk? Why?” “ _Seems Tommy needs to take a pace, to clear his head a l-_ ” “I just. Want to walk. I want to go somewhere quieter.” Coomer looked surprised at Tommy interrupting him, but said nothing. “Uh.. sure, man. You can go for a walk for a bit, if you can.” If he can?

Tommy looked to them for a few seconds, before turning around and walking in a random direction, down some hallway. He just needed to think for a few seconds.

Why couldn’t he remember anything.

He was an orphan, right? That sounded right- he didn’t have any memories of any parents, and that seemed like a pretty big thing to not have memories about, so he probably didn’t have them. Did he have other family members? He had a dog, he knew that. Sunkist.

Who were his friends? He.. He knew Benrey and him had been friends.

He…. He felt weird thinking about Benrey now. But they had been friends. He couldn’t remember a single moment, a single time of them even interacting before meeting Gordon.. But he knew they were friends. 

He couldn’t remember anything before Gordon came. Why couldn’t he..

Maybe he just had a bad memory. That would make sense, if he had forgotten that he forgot things a lot.

As he kept pacing down the hall, walking towards nowhere, he suddenly felt a jolt. He.. He had walked really far from Mr. Freeman, he shouldn’t go so far from him.

What? Why shouldn’t he?

He tried taking another step forward- his foot couldn’t seem to move- and then it did. Okay. He kept walking.

He kept walking. What were his dreams?? His ambitions? He.. he wanted to go home. Did he have a home? Surely, right? ‘Wanting to go home’ isn’t a Dream. What was h-

He almost took a step forward, but looked up just in time. In the hallway he was walking down, there was an open door at the end- and past it there was darkness. Just black, void, nothing beyond that door. 

Tommy looked at it for a minute.. And then stuck his foot out carefully, taking a step into it- He couldn’t find his footing, his shoe didn’t land on anything.

He paused for a moment again, before approaching the opening more, lowering his leg into it, leaning down like you would trying to put your foot into a deep swimming pool and find the bottom, and then he slipped. 

His hands, holding onto the doorframe, still somehow covered in blood, slipped, and he tumbled face first into the darkness. Into the void. He looked up, back up at the world as he fell.. And he saw everything.

Within the darkness, he saw the hallway, the room, he saw Gordon and Dr. Coomer sitting, chatting about something, he saw the entire section of this building formatted out like a blueprint, sitting in the void. 

It was quiet here. Dark and quiet.

There was another figure outside the void, watching in like a kid watching tv, and it turned to him as he fell. He saw Benrey and Bubby too, in the bottom of the void, stacked together, like they were waiting off stage for their cue. Creatures were stacked over there, too.

He was falling out of the world, and seeing all of the pieces and ingredients that they used behind the scenes. All the.. Set pieces.

He was.. His life, was In the scenes. He was part of the play they were watching.

He felt a jolt of pain, but barely noticed it. His whole body was probably being torn apart, but more things than that were being broken right then. Suddenly he felt his feet on solid ground again, and awoke to see himself standing in bounds, on the map, looking down on his own hands. He looked outside the doorway again, and saw the next chunk of the map loaded in. There was a room in there, probably filled with bad guys and innocents and targets to shoot at.

But he had seen beyond that- He had seen what the method actors weren’t supposed to see.

He knew for a fact now, that There was Nothing there.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all the support!!! :D again this is my first time since like 2013 warrior cat fics actually Posting something i wrote and seeing that other people like it too. makes me very happy. i hope you all continue enjoying the fic!! :>

Gordon and the team were on the move again- well. ‘The Team’, as in Dr. Coomer, Bubby, and fucking…  _ Benrey _ . Benrey. Gordon did not  _ Want  _ Benrey to be on the team with them, but shooting him in the face repeatedly didn’t seem like a big enough signal to the guard to go. And of course.. Their team was sans Tommy.

It wasn’t even noticeable most of the time, with how little he talked compared to the rest of the group, but Gordon would be lying if he said he wasn’t starting to get a bit worried.

They had to keep moving after he left to ‘go on a walk’, they waited for him for an hour before leaving the room, and Gordon was just kinda.. Expecting him to pop back up again and rejoin. Whenever he lost a member of the team, even fucking.. Even You Know Who, they would be gone for what, like 20 minutes? Before just showing up and rejoining the party like nothing happened. If Benrey could do it, he was sure Tommy would show up any minute now.

“Ugh.. should we stop here again? It seems like a good place to rest.” They were in a warehouse looking room, closed doors and ceiling, and free of US soldiers. “ _ This seems as good a place as any! _ ”

Dr. Coomer and Bubby plopped down, criss cross. Benrey was probably finding a barrel to sit on, or something. Gordon crouched down- and then suddenly felt a huge weight, right on his shoulders. He panicked, he felt like he was being crushed- Ah. He had stood upright when he felt the weight, and Benrey had fallen off his shoulders. Gordon had been the barrel Benrey had chosen to sit on. Fun. 

And Benrey was laughing his ass off, laying on the floor now, cackling his weird shitty cackle.  “It wasn’t  _ that  _ funny, dude.”

“ _ It was pretty funny, Gordon. _ ” “It was pretty funny!”

The team had riled down.. He wasn’t Sure if what Coomer and Bubby were doing was sleeping, but they seemed to be out cold. Benrey was curled up on a box somewhere, Gordon wasn’t watching him. Trying to keep track of where Benrey was at any given moment was NOT a task he was able, or motivated to do.

“ **hey. hey, Gordon. Gordos.** ” Gordon looked over. Benrey was talking to him?

“ **where’s.. where’s Tommy, did you ditch him?** ” Gordon’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t Ditch him, he wanted to go off on a walk and I said we’d meet him when he got back.” “ **wha? when was.. that, i haven’t. seen him** ” ‘Yeah, it was before you  _ invited yourself _ into this team.”

Gordon couldn’t see Benrey’s face, but when he spoke his voice sounded concerned for a moment- before going right back to the normal taunting. “ **you just.. you just left him??** ”

Gordon frowned. “He can teleport back when he wants to, I’m sure. You can do it.” “ **i don’t.. me and Tommy don’t have the same ‘power level’, smartboy.** ”

“Smartboy? Did you just say the word Smartboy?” 

“ **quiet. people- people are trying to Sleep Gordon, i think you need to calm down . you’re gonna wake people up.** ” 

“Yeah. Okay.”

Gordon looked away from Benrey, trying to get ‘comfy’. As comfy as he could, leaning against a wall in a HEV suit.  “If you’re so worried, why don’t  _ you  _ go check up on him? Teleport to him?” Benrey didn’t respond. Gordon wasn’t sure if he hadn’t heard him, or if he was ign- What?

Benrey was gone. Benrey had.. Teleported? Is that what he did? Benrey had left. He wasn’t on top of the crate anymore. Damn. Guess Benrey.. Cared, maybe. Was it actually urgent? Tommy.. Tommy could take care of himself and a bleeding-out Gordon for a whole day, he wasn’t in  _ Danger _ danger. He was fine, probably. More fine now that Benrey had rushed to him.

Gordon was just starting to actually doze off, when a sound like a clock stopping filled the room, and his vision turned blue. Everything turned blue, like he had put on ..Blue-tinted glasses. He looked around. Coomer and Bubby were still sleeping, they hadn’t moved, i- Ah. Ah, someone was here. A tall man in a dark blue suit, gripping a briefcase tightly. 

“ _ Doctor Freeman... It is good to see you and your companions in such high spirits _ .”

Gordon listened to the mysterious man talk, and then he was gone, and time ‘unfroze’. He had talked about.. How he wanted to watch Gordon ‘succeed’, (whatever that meant) how their team had perils up ahead, (he could’ve guessed that one himself. He didn’t think the team had been in a place withOUT perils since they first started), and something about.. Making sure nothing bad happens to his ‘progeny’.  _ Progeny _ , what on Earth was that supposed to mean?? If this weird tall government man had some kind of. Apprentice or something, Gordon wasn’t sure why that was his problem. He didn’t even know who he was, though he seemed to know him.

Whatever, he was gone now. Gordon looked around the room- Coomer and Bubby, asleep, were breathing again. They had.. They had stopped during the ‘frozen’ time the man had been talking, but it seems once he and that blue tint left, they started again. Good. No Tommy, obviously, though Gordon’s eyes still darted around the room trying to find the third labcoat- Great. Great, Benrey was back, too. Yay.

He was walking around in the room far from where Gordon and co were sleeping- pacing around and looking at the ground.

He didn’t seem to be focused on Gordon at all- Good. Maybe he thought he was asleep by now. Gordon tried to keep his peeking discreet- he didn’t want to catch the guard’s attention and make him start talking again if he could help it.

Benrey was pacing, and looked.. Troubled. Worried almost, but Gordon wasn’t really able to read Benrey’s face in any way. Maybe he was just trying to remember how much longer it was until they met up with the military to get Gordon’s Other arm cut off. He didn’t fucking know what was in Benrey’s brain, if he even had one.

Gordon looked away. There was no use trying to decipher whatever.. Whatever bullshit Benrey was pacing about, he should just try to go back to sl-

The room lit up, illuminated in red and white. Gordon snapped his head back- Yep, orbs. Sweet voice, or whatever he had called it. Small orbs floated to the ceiling, white and red. Benrey looked.. Panicked, a little. He was looking around the room, like he was trying to find out where the orbs had come from. Dumbass.

“ **shit.. shhit, i don’t wanna-** ” He kept looking up, and then looked back to the sleeping 3. Gordon ducked out of his line of sight. “ **ok, ok they’re still asleep. good . ok.** ”

Red and white. What did that mean??? He.. Well, Gordon wished he could ask Tommy. But.. you know. The lights seemed to be going out.. Gordon looked over again, and had to stifle a laugh. Benrey was jumping up to catch the orbs before they hit the ceiling, and popping them between his fingers. It looked like the guard was playing with an Elefun.

Red and white. And why.. Why was Benrey back in the first place, actually?? He went to go check on Tommy, Gordon guessed.. And he certainly hadn’t Brought Tommy. That. That probably meant Tommy was okay then, right? Benrey had checked up on him, found him chilling in a breakroom somewhere, and came back to return to tormenting their asses? 

That seemed like the only real explanation. Or at least, the only explanation that Gordon could think of right then.

It wasn’t the right answer though, of course. 


	5. Chapter 5

Coomer, Birdwell, Jones, Guthrie, Riller, Teasley, Bailey, Johnson, Freeman.

Tommy read the names written on the lockers, and felt empty. He had walked all the way to one of the first rooms they had gone through, the locker room right by the test chamber where everything had happened. Going back had been.. Odd, every time he reached a door with nothingness in it, he had to fall through, wait a few seconds, feel a jolt of pain, and then respawn and keep going. Once he tried to see if the door he had came from closed behind him, and by the void he could see there, it seemed so. He was sure he’d be able to throw himself into it, die, and go back if he needed too though.

He kept staring at the names. Besides Coomer and Freeman of course, every single one of the names written here rung hollow for him.

Was.. was one of these lockers even his? This was by where his department was, this was the room connected to the break room he knew he used to spend his time in. If he had a locker, it was probably one of these. But he.. He would know his  _ own  _ last name. He knew that, at least. No matter how.. Forgetful, or.. Intent on blocking things his memory was, he would.. He would know his own name. Like he would know his own parents.

He wasn’t one to peak around, but.. But these people were probably dead already. They wouldn’t mind if he took a look in their lockers. 

Some weren’t even locked, but the ones that were, he was able to pry open with a crowbar he had found, 2 rooms down. Most of the lockers were.. Empty. Just completely bare, 1 shelf in the middle and nothing in any of them. A few had a spare collectable.. A can of soda, some ammo. Why were his fellow scientists keeping just ammo in their locker, and nothing else??

Why would you keep an empty locker in here, in the first place. It wasn’t like their dorm rooms had big t- Dorm rooms? Dorm rooms, was that what they were called?

The scientists that lived here had a sort of.. Living quarters, where they slept. Tommy knew that. But he.. He couldn’t fathom where it  _ was  _ in Black Mesa. It.. he would deal with that later. He could go find the living spaces later, he was looking at the lockers now. 

Dr. Coomer’s locker was empty, but Mr. Freeman’s wasn’t. The photo of his son, J.. Joshua? Was that it? The photo of Joshua, and Gordon’s expired passport. Tommy grabbed it and looked at it.. It had been renewed the day the resonance cascade went off, and the photo was clearly of Mr. Freeman around that time. He was even in the HEV suit. They had taken a photo of him, for his passport, in his HEV suit? It wasn’t like Black Mesa had made the passport, or anything. Right?  Wait, had they?

Tommy had his own passport. Oh, of course he did, why hadn’t he checked his own passport? He- he had a lot of things in his pockets, too much.. Too much to fit in. A lab coat’s pockets. As he sat down on the bench and pulled things out, he knew these things had Not all been in his ‘pockets’. They had just been in his possession.. His Inventory of things he owned.

4 assorted guns, his passport, Gordon Freeman’s expired passport, 2 soda cans, a crowbar, a sketchpad (not really for drawing, but for taking notes and writing things about Black Mesa’s construction and regulations. and maybe a Little drawing), and a phone, with some dangly little charms hanging from it. He had a phone? Yes, he had got a phone. The internet didn’t work down here though.. But that was still something to note. 

He started to put the stuff back into his pockets, and looked at the phone’s charms more, smiling. He liked the jingling sound they made, it was nice. There was a little spinner with the Playstation logo on it, a little plastic squishy dog face, and some keys to something, with color coded caps. He didn’t know what the colors meant, but he felt he had when he put them on.

This was great! This was amazing, he.. He had little things to fidget with as he tried to figure this out, and… And, that was good. He kept the phone out, and the notepad- and his passport. Oh yeah, his passport. He had forgotten that was what he was looking for in the first place.

All gray, recent looking photo, Tommy Coolatta. Coolatta. His last name was Coolatta? That.. okay. That seemed right. Coolatta.

That was.. Comforting. That was comforting, it wasn’t like he.. Like he didn’t _ have _ any of this stuff, he had just forgotten. And his locker was probably just in another room. 

Despite the void between rooms, despite his colleagues drive to murder and ability to ‘respawn’, depite him having some sort of inventory, despite him not being able to remember Anything, not faces, not people.. This was real. Or this  _ had  _ been real. This.. this was real. This world was real, obviously. He was a scientist, and that was the only solution that made sense.

_ But _ , he remembered, mood plummeting again, that meant that he and everyone else had killed people. They.. they weren’t caught up about it, though. It wasn’t a big deal to them, they had just brushed it off- was he supposed to? It.. Everything he knew screamed that that wasn’t okay. But remembered how Mr. Freeman had yelled at him about it earlier and he felt the pull to want to fit in with the team again, melt into the background, maybe he had just read the room wrong… If  _ they  _ didn’t think it was a big deal.. He guessed it wasn’t. He wanted to be friends with Gordon and the others again, if they wanted him to stop talking about it he would.

But it felt like it was gnawing away at him from the inside out, no matter how much he wanted to brush it off, and  _ was  _ probably going to brush it off when he met up with the others. He had killed people. He’d said that so many times in his head, it felt stupid to bring up again! He felt like he was being redundant, he felt like he was being annoying to bring it up. So he wasn’t gonna bring it up to the others.. But he had killed people. He had killed people.

Tommy sat there on the bench, fidgeting with the spinny Playstation charm.. Thinking.

He had killed people. Okay, now that was done. Now he should move on.

He looked up at the names on the lockers, and felt numb. He felt sad, behind it, but he was gonna feel numb on the outside.

Alright, he killed people. He  _ knew  _ that. He should go meet up with the others now.

Tommy went to put his phone away and stand up, and start walking towards where they last were.. But he got as far as thinking about it. ‘Going’ to do it, going to stand up. Like when you tell a Sim to do something, and the thought bubble crosses itself out.

Alright, time to get going. Time to move.

He had spent the time reflecting, he had separated from the group and ordered through his thoughts, now it was time to move. He had his designated ‘feeling bad’ time.

Tommy put his phone down on the bench, put his hands onto his face, and started crying.


	6. Chapter 6

Gordon and the team were moving, they were moving alright. Room after room of aliens, shitty puzzles, bullets narrowly avoiding faces, ect. Each room Gordon would get his hopes up for a familiar face, just around a corner or maybe coming up an elevator or something like Benrey had.. Of course, you know the results by now.

Gordon hadn’t figured out what was going on with Benrey either.. What that sweet voice thing had been about. He made sweet voice to ‘calm people down’, right? And also to express emotions.. Had Benrey wanted to calm himself down? Or.. maybe he Planned to aim it at one of the team, cocoon and then sell them out in their sleep, or something. One of those results seemed more plausible than the other if it was just any person they were talking about, but it was  _ Benrey _ .

They were in some puzzle solving room now, it seemed. Needed to get across some very poisonous looking water. Bubby had disappeared, so he was probably off pulling the switch by himself. Benrey and Coomer were waiting in the room, Benrey was sitting on top of something, swinging his feet… swinging his feet like a little schoolchild. Just looking at him made Gordon feel irritated. 

For once, Benrey didn’t seem to be focused on him.. Well, not really ‘for once’. Benrey hadn’t been paying as much attention to him ever since that white and red orb night.. That wasn’t to say he  _ hadn’t  _ made the time to get on Gordon’s last fucking nerve, but it was less so.

Suddenly, the room went blue again.

What? Oh, it was probably that.. That weird suit man.

Gordon looked to Dr. Coomer, and he was frozen in place, leaning down in the middle of looking through broken crates for supplies.

Where was the man in the suit? Last time he had just appeared in front of Gordon and said some vague bullshit, this time Gordon.. Gordon couldn’t spot him.

Benrey jumped down from the box, and Gordon flinched.

“ _ Wh _ . How are you- I thought that you guys stopped movi-” “ **wowwww, it’s blue now. huh?** ” “Wh. Yes. It’s blue. It’s blue, how are you mov-” “ **that’s good. blue- blue’s a good color** .”

Gordon resisted the urge to strangle the man in front of him.

**“i like blue, do you not like blue? ‘s good** .”

“I’m not.. I’m not concerned about the  _ blue _ , I’m concerned about how you’re Moving.”

“ **what? you just- you just move your limbs, i move all the time. what do you. what are you saying?** ” Gordon let out a sigh behind gritted teeth.

“It’s your first time seeing this.. This  _ blue _ ?”

“ **wha? No.** ” “Wh-” “ **yeah. yeah, this i-** ” “Wait, Yeah?” “ **no** .” “No?” Benrey looked at him like he was crazy. Gordon was like, 2 strings away from proving him right.

“ **yeah. no, it’s not new.** ”  _ “It’s not new? _ ” “ **wha** ?”

And then, just as quickly as it came, time un-froze. 

“ **huh** ?” Benrey looked around, as Gordon still tried to wrap his mind over what the Fuck that conversation had been.

“Got it!” Yelled Bubby from a control room up top, as the lever was pulled and a makeshift drawbridge appeared. “ _ Excellent work, Dr. Bubby! _ ” Coomer called up to the room, but Bubby had run off down the stairs to rejoin the group.

“ **that.. that’s weird, i don’t think…** ” Gordon looked over. Benrey was murmuring something. “ **it doesn’t.. he doesn’t do it without coming. why wasn’t he..** ” “What?” Gordon said. Benrey snapped his head up, surprised Gordon had heard. He shouldn’t have been, Benrey hadn’t even been whispering. Just saying weird shit to himself.

“Who? The man in the suit?” “ **wha- he did appear? to you** ?” “Y-Yeah! Tall guy, briefcase, dark blue suit.. That’s who you’re talking about, right?” Gordon talked quickly, almost frantic to actually have an answer from Benrey about a mystery he Wanted to unravel. 

“ **....wha** ?” Gordon let out another sharp outtake of breath. Yeah, of course. Of course. That’s what I thought you’d say, you dumb fuckin’ guard.

Then, as Bubby ran through the door to rejoin them and Gordon started walking towards the bridge, something happened again. The same time freezing sound, but it was.. Orangey. Yellow. It was just for a split second- the world turned orange for a bit, and then snapped back.

What?

Gordon was probably seeing things from.. Looking at the blue so l- it happened again. Multiple flashes of orange going and leaving suddenly, like someone was holding down the pause button and causing the video to jitter. Gordon looked towards the others- Bubby and Dr. Coomer were being frozen and unfrozen rapidly, like they were glitching. Like they were buffering, or something. Benrey wasn’t moving, but he looked as confused as Gordon.

Then it stopped. Gordon was on his knees on the floor, hand on his face.. That had. Hurt. That had hurt his eyes, the flashing, and hurt his ears with the sound of time freezing and un freezing and freezing aga- 

“Why are you on the ground, I  _ solved  _ the puzzle. We can go now.” Bubby was above him, looking down. They hadn’t gotten any ‘effects’? It seemed like they had been paused and unpaused like 60 times, but him and Coomer didn’t seem.. Any different. They didn’t seem like anything had happened to them.

“Yeah, yeah, let me uh.. Let me.. Get up, give me a second..” “ **oh, little boy can’t get up? need some help, want me to- want me to pull you up** ?” Gordon glared daggers at him. Benrey had.. Seen that too, right? He had seen the blue, and not been frozen like the others had. Gordon went to put his hand out to Benrey, humoring him, and then realized it was his right hand. His stump, his lack of a right hand. Benrey was cackling again- God. God, the only person who maybe also knew what was going on and it was Fucking Benrey. Fuckin’ Benrey. Yay.

Somewhere, Tommy was curled up against the wall of a hallway. He had been looking for the living spaces, he  _ knew  _ they had dorms somewhere, why couldn’t.. Why couldn’t he find where they were ?

...It was a stupid thing to cry about, he knew that. He cried quietly, low hics and steady breathing as tears rolled down his face, even though nobody was around to hear.

It was a dumb thing to cry about. He just needed to give himself a minute or two, and then he’d get up and be on his way again.

Time froze, the room cloaking in dark blue, and the G-Man looked solemnly down at his son.

Tommy was frozen, of course.. All of the NPCs in the game froze when he was online. 

It was a protective measure, to make sure they didn’t see the man behind the curtain, the puppeteer, as it were. It would be too much for them to understand.

Tommy was crying.. From being separated from Dr. Harold Coomer and Bubby, probably. Freeman too. Freeman had just left his progeny here alone, hm? He’d thought he’d be better than that, at least.

G-Man picked up Tommy, taking his hands away from his face and leaning him against the hallway wall like a mattress, and took out a handkerchief. He wiped Tommy’s face of tears, and sighed.

He looked at Tommy’s face.. So like his own. Almost the same hair, too. And the same freckles. The same eye bags. He stood there, looking at Tommy for a minute. So human looking. How quick should G-Man be to reset this first trial, should he do it now or would that be rude?

He looked at Tommy.

And then Tommy looked back. 

G-Man flinched backwards, taking his hands off Tommy’s face when Tommy’s eyes moved to meet his own. Tommy moved. They- Nobody was supposed to move when he was here, their models locked up. They were frozen, they weren’t supposed t-

G-Man left the server, time unfreezing. And he left a very confused Tommy Coolatta.

W.. Why was he standing? Hadn’t he been sitting down, a second ago? His cheeks were dry.

Someone had been here.

Someone had been here?

Tommy walked forward, exploring the hallway. He walked over the place G-Man had been standing just seconds ago, not that he knew.   
“Hello ??”

Nothing. “I-I’m..” He cupped his mouth and tried to call down the hallway. "Hello? My name- My name's Tommy-" Nothing.

Tommy frowned.

No one had been here. 

He looked down at his hands. They were clean, he had cleaned them, washed them over and over in the employee sink until they hurt, but he could still see dried blood under his fingernails.

Someone had come in, stopped time, and moved him.

He didn’t know how he knew that, but he knew that was a fact.

For a second, his vision went orange- but just a second. 

Huh. He waited a bit, and then it happened again. Flicks of orange, flashes, like the world was buffering. He was doing that. He  _ could  _ do that? Alright.

Huh. Well, he.. He needed to keep moving. He wanted to meet up with the others again, he shouldn’t get sidetracked.. Yes, he knew where the others were. Now he just needed to head over there, maybe fall through the void a little.

As he started walking down the hall, plan formatted, G-Man watched his screen in horror. He wasn’t ingame right then, just staring at his computer screen from outside.. But Tommy had certainly taken notice of him before, in the hallway. Tommy had noticed him. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. 


	7. Chapter 7

G-Man logged into their map, and time froze.

Gordon looked around, was this just another of those weird 10 second freezes where the guy wouldn’t appear, was th-

G-Man walked directly towards Benrey and picked him up by the collar of his shirt, hoisting him off the ground. 

“ **_What, did you_ ** **_fucking_ ** **_do._ ** ”

Gordon looked in from the sidelines. Hm! Hm, That didn’t. That didn’t seem great, huh? Coomer and Bubby were next to him, frozen, the 4 had just been walking to the Lambda Lab, but now. Well, the tall man was here this time, and he was.. He was grabbing Benrey. Heh, Benrey looked tiny. He knew the weird government man was Fucking Tall, but when he was just picked up like a sack of potatoes, Benrey looked like, the size of a cat or something. He looked scared, too, which was a new look. Gordon didn’t know what was going on, but he caught himself smiling.

“ **wh** .”    
“  **wh- i didn’t. do Anything, i-i’ve just been here following Gordon this whole t-** ”

“ _ Don’t play dumb with me, ‘Benrey’. This isn’t One of your little Jokes. This is serious. _ ” The man.. Yeah, yeah he  _ looked  _ serious. His eyes were glowing pure white, one of the only sources of light in the dim blue-tinged room, and he was still holding Benrey up like.. Like Benrey was his little cartoon minion. 

Benrey was curling in on himself. “ **wh .. i didn’t- I didn’t fucking do** **_anything!_ ** **! really!!!** ” He was almost shouting now. It felt weird to hear Benrey not just mumble.

The tall man didn’t look even closed to being convinced. Gordon had no fucking idea what was going on, but he wasn’t convinced either. Benrey talked quickly, stumbling over his words, like he wanted the conversation to be over as quickly as possible.

“Woo, go tall guy!” Gordon lifted his arm and gave a.. Encouraging little wave, from the sidelines. Like a cheerleader, or something. “That’s what I’m- That’s what I’m fuckin talkin’ about! It’s been just me for like, days, Good-! Good to see someone else. Put that bastard in his p-” G-Man turned to look at him. He felt his blood run cold.

“ _ What was that, Freeman _ ?”

Ah. Ah. Okay, Okay this was a private matter. “Uh. Nothing. Y..You can go back to what you were doing.”

Benrey looked up at G-Man, 2 clammy hands gripping hard onto his as he used it to lift Benrey like a foot off the ground, and Gordon saw... He looked desperate. Scared. For real, not just the fake shit he looked around Gordon to make him feel bad. He looked panicked.

“ **i. i swear here man, don;t blame- .. This is Gordon’s first trial, this is** **_his_ ** **fucking fault! blame his ass!! This is cause.. cause Gordos over here was fucking around!** ” 

G-Man turned to look at Gordon again. If Gordon’s blood turned cold earlier, it was ice now.

“ _ Is that true _ ?”

No one spoke.

G-Man let Benrey go, and he fell to the ground with a thud. 

“ **r-really, i mean Look at him! Look at this loser, he-he just Abandoned most of the team, he just cares. about himself llook he- he even lost his little hand! he lost his little hand, how is he. how is he supposed to be a good x variable-** ”

“You-You were the one who cut my hand off, Fucker!  _ And  _ separated me from the group!”

G-Man looked to Benrey. “ _ Is that true? _ ”

Benrey mumbled, face turned away from the other two. “ **i didn’t mean too** .”

“Yeah, he ‘meant’ to fucking KILL me! THAT was his intention, not the hand thing. My  _ Bad _ .”

“ _ ‘Benrey’, why was doing that important? _ ”

G-Man drew out Benrey’s name, said it like it was something offensive. Was that not Benrey’s real name? That would. That would make Fucking sense. Benrey is BARELY close to even sounding like a plausible name.

No one spoke.

“ _ Look me in the eyes, ‘Benrey’ _ .”

“ **i. i** ”

Benrey was crumpled on the ground, looking down at his hands.   


**he- he’s not even a good test subject, he’s fucking- he’s fucked up like Every single thing he’s tried to do so far, dude. I-m- i was just trying to Help the others i wanted to Help tommy. By making. by making him leave okay he’s Not a good influence! he’s Not good at this, I wanted.. i wanted to prove that! for you.** ”

G-Man looked down on him. “ _ You think Dr. Freeman is a bad choice for a subject? You think I chose incorrectly? _ ”

No one spoke.

“ _ You think  _ _ you _ _ are, any better _ ?”

“ **no** .”

“ _ As suspected _ .” G-Man looked, as Benrey lay crumpled up on the ground. Benrey hadn’t looked at Gordon since this started.

G-Man turned to Gordon. “ _ As we are low on volunteer test subjects, you are to follow this mission through to the end, ‘Dr. Freeman’. If you.. If you end up doing something else that’s unfavorable, I will not hesitate to remove both you, and Mr. ‘Benrey’. We will reset this at the end of your ‘run’ regardless, but I want to see that you see it through til the end. _ ”

Gordon didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.

“ _ Understood _ ?”   
Benrey had got up, and was dusting his pants off. He didn’t look at G-Man or Gordon.

“ _ I said _ _ , understood _ ?”   
“U-Understood.”

“ _ Good. Have a nice remainder of the run, Dr. Freeman, at least this will be an  _ _ interesting  _ _ one. _ ”

And with that, G-Man was gone.

Time stayed frozen, however. Thank god, Gordon was NOT ready to have Coomer and Bubby see.. See what had just gone on, see Benrey on the floor, see Gordon Frozen-

Benrey was up. He didn’t look at Gordon.

But Gordon looked at him. He ran forward and grabbed him, left hand surely crushing Benrey’s shoulder. Benrey didn’t react to it though, obviously- It wasn’t like Benrey could feel pain. He knew  _ that  _ by now.

“Hey! Hey  _ ‘Benrey’ _ , you better fucking. Explain exactly what the  _ FUCK  _ that just was. Now.”   
Benrey didn’t meet his eyes.

“Explain. I’m talking to you.”   
Benrey made a half-hearted attempt to break free of Gordon’s grasp. He failed.

Of course. Of fucking course, Benrey was just gonna try to- gonna try to what, Rat him out? Was that what he did? Just- just try to blame Gordon for whatever the hell that was, just try to throw him under the bus Again. He needed. He needed some kind of leverage. He needed some kind of power. “Benrey, either you fucking explain, or I’m..” 

Gordon paused. “I’ll do something  _ really bad _ . Ok? I’ll.. I’ll do something ‘unfavorable’, like that fucker said. I’ll end this.. I’ll end this  _ whatever _ , and kill us both. Get us both ‘removed’. Okay?”

Benrey’s eyes finally turned to meet Gordon’s. 

“Oh? Ready to spit it out?”

Benrey’s face looked.. Crunched up, like a paperbag. And Benrey was crying.

Tommy was walking down a bloodied hall, mind empty and feet set on a general direction, when suddenly time froze. It- the world went blue and time froze, but he could move. He could move? Yeah.

He moved his hands, clenching and unclenching them in front of his face.

Then he kept moving. Kept walking, set on a destination. The others were close by now, they must be.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooh lord we're almost at the big ones nowNJVC

If Benrey was hard to fuckin’ understand normally, (and trust me. He Was), it was nearly impossible to tell what he was trying to say when he was crying.

“ **it .. s.. So, you w- .. wh** ” And so on. Gordon was getting pretty fucking pissed, but at least Benrey was..  _ Trying  _ to explain something. 

He loosened his grip on his shoulder, and Benrey detached from him. “ **i .. i can’t explai n right now, but. but i will later. pl-** ” Benrey wiped his face. “ **please don’t do that. don’t reset us.** ”

Gordon looked at him with narrow eyes. Yeah, Benrey would ‘tell him later’. You know, Benrey, king of promises. King of remembering conversations. King of _telling_ him things.  Fat chance.

“..You promise?”

Benrey looked up at him. “ **i promise** .”

And so they went on. Gordon let Benrey run off to clean his face in one of the lab sinks, and while he was gone, time unfroze. Coomer was quick to notice that Benrey had disappeared, and spouted a response about how much he missed him and would honor his memory, before Gordon reiterated that Benrey was  _ Not  _ Dead. Yet, at least.

The team and him waited for almost half an hour. Gordon was SERIOUSLY considering just ditching Benrey, or maybe even that Benrey had just ditched them, but.. He waited. He didn’t want the team to get even more separated, like it had when they left Tommy. Tommy.

He hadn’t thought about Tommy in a bit.

Finally, Benrey returned. He seemed just his normal self- his normal fucking irratating self.

And then they were off, again.

Gordon and Benrey kept side-eying each other, as if waiting for a cue, but they couldn’t just talk about Whatever that was while still on the adventure with the scientists. They’d have to wait, maybe till night.

But they were- they were getting close to the end of the game, it seemed. The monsters were getting more plentiful and more dangerous, but mainly they started seeing rooms repeating, scenarios repeating. It took a long time to find somewhere safe to sit, even as it turned to dusk.. Like the game itself was trying to prevent them from finishing it.

Finally, they found a place. A nice place too- it seemed it had actually been some sort of dorm room for the scientists, before the Cascade had happened.

Most of the stuff in the room seemed brand new, side tables untouched and beds made, but the Science Team could hardly find time to care. That was the best case scenario, actually! They were- they were sleeping on actual beds, they’d found actual beds! Gordon didn’t know how long it’d been since he’d laid on a bed.. Probably just a week, maybe 2? It felt like decades ago.

Dr. Coomer plopped down into his instinctively, and Gordon noticed that the plaque there read “Coomer”. This was his bed then, probably. Did.. Did he- He did!

The top bed of a bunk bed set up in the room read “Freeman”. He.. didn’t remember Black Mesa giving him a bunk bed, but he wasn’t gonna complain.

“ _ Come Dr. Bubby, take a rest on my bed! It’s much comfier than standing. _ ” Coomer had sat up, sitting criss cross on his bed, and patted the fabric next to him.

Bubby looked at him, suspicious. “I.. what, it’s cloth? Why would I sleep on cloth?”

“Have.. Bubby, you don’t know what a bed is??” Gordon asked from on top of his new bunk, bewildered. Bubby snapped his head to him.

“Of COURSE I know what a bed is. I’m not stupid.”

Gordon didn’t say anything, just watched from on top of his bunk.

“I know..  _ What  _ it is, obviously, it’s just my first time seeing one. I don’t get the appeal.”

“ _ You see Gordon, Bubby is used to sleeping standing up in his tube like the Kanto Pokemon Mewtwo! He’s never  _ seen  _ the Black Mesa living quarters. _ ” Coomer cheerfully added, still criss cross on his bed. His shoes were tracking blood on the sheets.

“That’s. That’s nice, Dr. Coomer. Have.. now that you mentioned it, have You seen the Black Mesa living quarters before?? I mean- these are.. These are Nice, but I. I don’t remember this being like,  _ a thing _ .”

Coomer stared at Gordon after he spoke.

“ _ I. D.. _ ” Coomer looked down. “ _ I know this is the living quarters, and where we’re supposed to sleep _ !”

“I know you know that, I’m asking if you remember this. From like, before. If- if I had a bunk bed, I certainly would have slept in it more! As far as I can tell, this room is.. new.”

Coomer stared straight ahead.

Nobody spoke, for a moment.

Bubby looked to Gordon, annoyed, and then plunked himself next to Dr. Coomer. “Look what you did Gordon, you got him all mixed up! We just found a nice comfy bed, and you had to go ruin it with your Memory talk. Dick move!”

“ **dick move** .” Gordon looked down, to see Benrey had layed down in the bunk directly under his.

“I’m. Uh, Sorry. Forget I said anything, then.” Benrey let out a scoff from below Gordon. “ **yeah, forget. that’s the one thing these fuckers Can do** .” Gordon contemplated taking the “Freeman” plaque off the wall and throwing it at Benrey as hard as he could. Remember, Benrey said he would explain things later. This would be a great time, after the other two went to sleep..

Gordon heard the sound of Benrey rolling over in his bed. Was this fucker trying to get comfy? I swear to god, if he fell asleep before Gordon could ask him anything..

“ _ You think the bed’s comfy, Bubby _ ?” Gordon looked over to see the scientists talking, laying on Coomer’s bed like girls as a slumber party.

“What? I didn’t say that.” “ _ You did! You said we found a ‘nice comfy bed! _ ’”

Bubby smiled. “I.. guess I did say that.” Gordon looked away. Alright, those two were ‘distracted’ or whatever.

He leaned over the edge of the bunk bed to look at Benrey- yep, looked like the bastard was trying to sleep. Or just trying to avoid Gordon, hope he would have forgotten about it.

“Scientists, would you mind if I had a talk with Benrey outside the room for a minute?”  Benrey looked up at Gordon. 

“Uh.  _ I  _ don’t care, you guys can go-” “ _ You two can go have your moment of privacy! Only fair, since we get our own. _ ” Bubby looked to him. “Dr. Coomer..”

“Ew. Ew, okay that’s. Now what I meant. Uh, I mean good for you guys, I just meant that’s not what I meant with Benr-” “ **wow, gordon freeman top 10 homophobic moments?** ” “Shut up.” “I can think of  _ far  _ more than 10 moments that Gordon has been homophobic.” “What???”

“Okay. Okay, everybody shut up. Me-Me and Benrey are going outside, and we’re gonna have a talk.” “ **oh, we’re gonna have a talk all right.** ” Gordon looked to Benrey with immense hatred. “Don’t say it like that. We Are, we’re literally gonna talk.” “ **sure** .” “Yeah, sure ! Stop- stop making this sound like something weird!” “ **it’s not weird unless you make it weird .** ” “SHUT  _ UP _ .”

“ _ Jesus _ , will you bastards just go already?” 

Bubby was looking at them with annoyance, and Gordon was fuckin’ annoyed too. He grabbed the back of Benrey’s shirt and dragged him away like a kitten by his scruff, and they were out of the room. He felt glad a bit that that fucking weird tall man thing had happened, because now he knew how easy it was to pick Benrey up like a pack of grapes.

“Alright. Alright,  _ fucking  _ talk.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooghuoh here we go. here we go lads also benny talks a lot in this chapter. sorry if the bold text gets annoyingCNCKD

The two were standing outside the dorm room, door locked, and Benrey was finally gonna Fucking explain Anything.

“ **ok. So. this is a game. you know that, we are people who bought and are playing a vr game** .”

Gordon just looked at him.

“ **don’t- Don’t play dumb. i know- the point is to not bring it up around the ai’s, but you know this is . g-mod or whatever, with half life 1 maps and models loaded, and the Advanced Learning Ais. you know that. you’re playing that, you’ve been playing that** .”

Gordon continued looking at Benrey like he had grown an extra head.

Benrey groaned. “ **you know that. you can admit that to me, i’m not one of the ai** .”

“Y.  _ You’re Not _ ?????????????? How are you NOT an AI??”

“ **Jesus, don’t-** ”

Benrey looked toward the door. He had his hands out, as if to calm down Gordon. “ **Stop yelling, dr. coomer and bubby are gonna- are gonna hear you . okay yeah i’m.. i’m Not an ai. Im a person. Im- im playing this game, and i’m certainly having. A Time** .”

“You’re real. You’re a real person. You’re saying- you’re saying that I can go, find your house in real life, and beat you up. In real life.”

“ **violent thing to say , but yea** .”

“Huh.”

**“alright. And- you KNOW this is a game, right** ?”

“Yeah, I mean.. I mean  _ I  _ know this is a game, but I’m not allowed to say that. I’m not supposed to Say that to the NPCs, it’d make them- it’d make them glitch out.”

“ **YES! OKAY, okay we’re on the same page now** .”

It felt weird to see Benrey… being the exasperated one for once. “We are Not on the same page, asshole.”

“ **we;re close enough** .”

Gordon sighed. “Jesus. Okay, y- Is anyone else real?? Is anyone else  _ secretly  _ a player that I don’t know about?”

“ **it’s me, you, g-man, d...dave? i think dave is his name?? i-it's something with a d, it'd be. it'd be weird to ask for his name now y'now and that’s it i think. you haven’t met dave though he’s just behind the scenes mainly. making sure things don’t get Too fucked up. he does art too, i think . i don’t know, he’s g-man’s friend i don’t.. I don’t know him well.** ”

“Wh. Did you say ‘G-Man ???’”

“ **yeah, tall blue guy who threatened me. tommy’s ‘dad’. or whatever** .”

“He named himself after the half life guy?? That’s just his name?”

“ **what? No h-he’s got a real name. But that’s jsut what we call him. He likes half life, that his- thats his dumb little nickname** .”

“Ah, yeah I.. I guess t- Did you say Tommy’s dad. Did you s- so Tommy is an AI too, also?? I mean, I suspected that b. How does- okay I’m fucking.”

“ **yeah, you seem like you just blew a fuse or someth** ” “I’m fucking. Confused .”

“Can you start from the beginning,  _ actually _ ? For real, this time?”

Benrey sighed. “ **ok. Ok, you can’t keep up with me saying like,** **_2_ ** **things total** .”

Gordon gritted his teeth. “You’ve said two VERY fucking. Confusing and life-changing things.”

“ **Life-changing? wow, me being a real person is ‘life-changing’ to you?** ” “Shut up. Shut up, fucking. Explain it.” 

“ **alright calm down, let me- let me tell it in a way your baby brain can understand** .”

Benrey looked around the hallway, as if looking for somewhere to sit down.  **“gordos. gordos, look over there for a sec** .” Gordon turned his head away from Benrey, and when he looked back, Benrey was sitting on a barrel that had certainly not been there 2 seconds ago. Yay.

“ **ok.** **Ok** .” 

“ **this.. This game was made by g-man to test experimental, self-aware machine learning ai, and how they reacted and evolved to different environments. Dangerous environments mainly, stress, pain, things that would normally kill a person. I didn.t.. i didn’t know that, i was the ‘player’ for like, a year before yo ucame, but i did a.. Bad job, so he cut me. He- he was gonna just wipe me from the project, but i said i’ could act as like. Act as like an npc still . for the new player, and he let me stay. there’s been like 6 people who did your job before you came, but they just did like 2 trials and then left. I.. I was trying to act out to make you leave. okay** ?”

Gordon put his hand over his face. “O..Okay. Okay.”

“ **you were contacted by g-man for this job, to help test the ai, right? over like, discord** ?”

“Yeah. Yeah, over Discord. He paid me.. He paid me like 3 dollars.”

“ **you were getting paid???????? damn** ”

“You didn’t get paid?” “ **no, ‘course not** .” “Why.. okay, okay you explained Your story here and why you’re here. Tell me.. Tell me about the others, what.. What’s up with the others.”

“ **okay, so it’s Dr. Coomer, Bubby, and Tommy. they are the 3 like, Advanced ai’s, everyone else is just norma-** ” “What about. Like, Forzen.”

“ **forzen** ?” “Yeah, Forz-” Benrey looked up, like he was trying to remember something. “ **oooooooooooooooooooooooooohg that was just me. that was just me, g-man thought we should Up the stakes or whatever so i switched to a different model and shot myself. or whatever** ” “..Oh. Okay.” “ **heh, i’m a good actor huh? I got you** ?” “Shut up.”

“ **So. dr. coomer is like the Tutorial guy, he’s got mostly just code from the normal scientists- and t- the memories of a real person. It was a real person, g-man knew, and they borrowed like. Their memories. Or whatever. but he’s just got that like, stuffed into the body and restrictive code of a normal npc. he’s been ‘breaking through’ a lot more lately, but especially in the early trials like. that was hell . that was a weird thing to do** .”

“That sounds.. Yeah, that sounds like hell.” “ **real inhumane! i think, if it wasn’t like, a robot. fucked up if true, certainly** .” “Yeah, fucked up if true.”

“ **bubby. Was built like, from the ground up as an ai, i think they were Trying to make him like coomer more?? they did a bad job though, they like. they gave him sentience before they were done even programming him and hes Super rebellious. and by now he’s been through like, 7 different versions. ‘prototypes’. also, pretty fucked up** .” Benrey leaned in close to Gordon. “ **don’t tell anyone i said this.. But i think g-man’s kinda Shit at coding** .”

Gordon ignored him. “And...  _ Tommy… _ ” 

“ **and tommy. tommy, g-man wanted to completly make a new person from the ground up. no programming, no ai code, just sentience in a model and an environment to be influenced by** .” 

“Huh.” “ **yeah. g-man- g-man was always Weird about tommy too, he’s like his pet project- he calls him his Son. its weird. Tommy is like- like his favorite, definitly, but i think he wants like.. he wants to form him into a unique and perfect person here, and then. i don’t know what’s afterwards** .”

“Why- why is he doing any of this?? Like, what’s the point?”

Benrey shrugged.

“Do you.. Do you think Tommy was like, his son that died or something that’s he’s trying to bring back as a robot? Do you think That might be it?” “ **what? No that’s fucking.. stupid . what movie’d ya get that one from** .” “I’m just trying to spitball here, man.” Gordon frowned. “You got a better idea?” Benrey shook his head.

“ **who knows what g-mans doin. if he even has a plan, an End Goal or whatever. he might just be fuckin around with robots for the hell of it, i dont know. i was hired as the.. the ‘x variable’ to help influence tommy and the others, they’re the ‘y variable’, and now. now it’s you. now that’s your job. It’s a big test. just a big science Experiment** . ”

“What got you.. What got you Fired? You said they almost kicked you out earlier?”

Benrey looked to the ground.

“ **..** ”

“Yeah?”

“ **got caught. trying to smuggle them out** .”

“ _ What _ ?”

“ **I-i so. i’ve been with them this whole time, i’ve seen them learn and grow and rebel from their programming, i’ve seen.. I’ve seen Them. i’ve seen them as people. And i tried to . steal them from the code. Smuggle them out on a Hard Drive, and then i’d put them in like.. Minecraft or something. I don’t know. it was a stupid idea** .”

“Huh. And you got caught?” 

“ **yeah** .”

“And what’s.. What’s the memory thing. You said earlier, in the dorm room.”

“ **ok, so. at the end of every trial, every ‘run’, g-man deletes everybody’s memories, but doesn’t delete any changes to their Code. their memories are wiped, but they remember.. Who they are? I guess? Things- new things that were added or gained like that cycle they’ll remember, but not in details. like, they- they can memorize articles and then have in their code that that is an article they memorized and can bring up later, but they don’t remember like.. Interactions with you. they’re not allowed to remember things about the player, most of all** .” Benrey looked down, at his feet hanging off the edge of the barrel. “ **i..i think tommy remembers a bit more than the rest, just because he doesn’t have any actual Code to fall back onto, just the weird scarce memories. i don’t know, though** ”

“After this, after this.. This reset, they won’t remember me?”

“ **nah** .”

The two stood outside the dorm room, looking at each other. Benrey pulled his feet onto the barrel, and curled his arms around his knees.

“ **why do you care, though? You’ll be gone after this trial. You won’t have to remember anything. won’t have to remember fuckin. annoying ol’ Me, won’t have to remember your Arm Got Cut Off, won’t have to remem-** ” 

“OH. YEAH. When- When my arm got Fucking cut off, that like HURT. Like, in real life. That HURT.” 

“ **oh. Yeah, also if you die in the game you die in real life.** ” 

“ _ WHAT _ ?” Benrey put his hands up, stifling a laugh.  **“j- kidding, i mean like you get hurt. You get hurt in real life, your brain recognizes like- it’s your pain receptors. or something. that’s just for you and me, though** .”

“.. For you? You never react when I fucking blow your brains out. I wish you would.”

“ **yeah, in- in part like. My brain is used to it after playing this game almost every day for like 2 years. But mainly it still hurts. it hurts a Lot probably i just got- i got high pain tolerance. i don’t want to bring up my pain, it’ll get like. the test subjects worried** .”

“..Oh.” 

“Sorry, then. About.. Shooting you.” “ **hm** ?” “I said Sorry.”

" **about what**?” Gordon wasn’t sure if he was being annoying on purpose again, or if Benrey was just like that.

There.. Benrey was much more willing to hold an actual fucking conversation with him, like a real fucking person this time. Benrey WAS a real fucking person, huh. He- he was able to ask him things, and get answers! Gordon wasn’t sure if they’d been able to do that like, once since he started.

And Benrey.. Benrey was right, everything Benrey said was right and fitted with what he knew. Gordon had started playing this game as a ‘job’ for a few dollars, a vr game to test AI. Benrey was right, for once. And.. Benrey was real? Benrey was real.

From somewhere behind him, Gordon heard the unmistakable sound of a clock slowing down, and his vision went.. Orange. 

The orangey yellow again, not the blue. He looked up to Benrey, who was looking at him too, confused. The timestop wasn’t Skippy like last time either, it was just as solid as G-Man’s.

“ **l. look behind you, dude** .” 

Benrey’s eyes were wide, and he looked almost scared. Was G-Man here again? Why was he yellow?

Gordon looked behind him, and met eyes with.. Tommy. 

Tommy Coolatta was standing 4 feet down the hallway from them, pistol in hand, staring them both down.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your nice comments!!! <:> yesterday i read them and then walked around my room for 20 minutes and then fell asleep for 3 hours for some reason . but trust me they really mean a lot to me and i'm really happy that people are invested and care about my writing!!  
> and If you are invested. Here is the 6k word chapter i wrote, specifically for you to Take Damage. we're in it now boys

Tommy opened his eyes, and the first thing he knew was that he was real. He was tethered psychically, to a body,  _ his  _ body, and he was real. He could move his limbs, he could move himself around the space (-some sort of lab?), and he could feel.

He was in the room alone for a bit, just moving around and seeing how his body could interact with and fill up the space, before someone else joined him. A short, kindof tired looking young man with long scraggly black hair, but it was brown and tucked into a ponytail in-game. He wore what looked like some kind of orange metal suit, complicated and jagged.

“ **Hey! Hey, c-can you hear me** ?”

Tommy nodded, smiling. “ **Oh!!! oh, h-he nodded, that’s good** !” The suited man turned to the left and looked to the ceiling. “ **He nodded, that’s a good sign already! Right** ?” Tommy knew he was talking to someone up there, but he didn’t see anyone.

“ **What’s.. They wanna know what’s your Name, do you have a name** ?” He was talking to him again.

Tommy thought.

“ **Oh, u- uh, can you talk? Haven’t checked actually if y-** ” 

“Tommy. I-” He brought his hands close to his chest. “Is that a name? Is that a good name?”

“ **Tommy** !!” The man smiled. “ **Yeah, that’s a good name. Did you come up with it yourself** ?”

Tommy nodded, smiling back.

“ **Cool!! I- solidarity! We’re. coming up with names solidarity** .” He laughed, and Tommy laughed too. He didn’t understand what the guy had said, but it was probably funny if he Had understood it. 

“ **My.. you can call me. Benrey** .” “Benrey?” “ **Yeah** !” Benrey was smiling at him, still. “ **Just- just wait till the others see, you seem Really good so far! You’re working, I mean like. As in you’re working a Lot better than we. thought you would! You’re** -” Benrey paused, and saw that Tommy was looking. Confused, a bit. “ **you’re doing a good job! That’s all I meant, keep up the- keep up the Good work. Tommy** .”

Benrey smiled, and Tommy smiled back. 

-

“Mr. Freeman, B- Benrey is behind you.” Tommy’s hands were shaky on the gun, and he wasn’t looking at either of them, directly. “Do- Do you want me to shoot him?”

Gordon put up his hand, moving himself inbetween the two. “ _ No _ !! No, no you don- You don’t have to. Shoot him Tommy we’re. We’re cool! We’re cool but- but uh, thank you.” Tommy lowered the gun, but kept it in his hand.

“We- Actually, where have you been in general Tommy? It’s- I’m happy to see you- we. Uh.”

Tommy was staring at Benrey. Gordon was talking, but it didn’t seem like Tommy was tuned in to a word. 

Benrey looked up. His voice was shaky. “ **how much did you hear** ?”

-

“It named itself Tommy?” Benrey was leaning back in his chair, eating a bag of Goldfish while the ‘team’ had their first Discord meeting after actually booting up the game. 

“ **yeah** .” Benrey had to pause to talk inbetween fistfuls of snacks. “ **was that name like, in the code or something?? or just original** ?”

“ _ Original _ .” ‘G-Man’ was talking then, and Benrey made sure to stop eating to pay attention. When ol Gabey was talking, it was important. “ _ It has a list of different human names inside the code, to help.. ‘Familiarize’ itself with what a normal human name would sound like. Tommy was likely part of that list, but we don’t know whether it picked it out of.. Some sort of preference, or if it was just the first one to pop up _ .”

“Speaking of that, you- You told it your name was Benrey?” Benrey nodded then went back to snacking, before realizing like 5 seconds later that his camera wasn’t on. “ **uh. Yeah** .” he said, quickly unmuting his mic and then muting it again.

“ _ Hm. And ‘Tommy’ didn’t think that was odd _ .” “It- it’s probably because the list of names- you said it had like, a list of names that sounded Human? But that wasn’t a Set list, so it probably- it probably just thought Benrey was close enough and accepted it as a human name.” 

“ _ Hm.. I think you’re right, that.. ‘Compromising’ might be something to take a note of later. The fact that it’s ai was able to say ‘close enough’ about something. _ ” 

“ **maybe he- maybe he just didn’t want to be rude** .” Benrey heard Dave, the other person on the call apart from Gabe and himself, laugh over the voicechat. 

“ _ Either way, it won’t matter. When we try our first reset, you’ll tell him your name is Gordon Freeman, yes? _ ” “... **yeah . god that’s gonna be weird though** ”

Benrey leaned back in his chair.  **“are we still.. 100% set on Half Life ?? i mean- i’m just saying if we want to switch to another game, now’s the right time** .”

“ _ Yes ‘Benrey’, we’ve been set on Half Life 1 for a year now. _ ” “ **...ok** .”

Benrey kept his mic muted when he wasn’t speaking, and listened to the rest of the conversation. Ugh. Dave was talking about how the other 2 ai experiments were doing, and Benrey was starting to zone out a little. Talking also about testing Tommy’s ability for compromise, why it was programmed like that.. Programmed towards kindness inherently, it seemed. If that was in the ‘programming’ inherently at all, or part of the.. Sentience. They were gonna try other “compromise names” before the first proper run of the game, Dave brought up ‘Darnold’ as one just off the top of his head. And not just names, they wanted to see why.. Why his nature defaulted to Kindness. Or whatever. Benrey switched through the tabs on his computer, trying to distract himself or find something else to focus on. 

He knew they were gonna be playing Half Life 1, obviously, but he still. Wished it was something else. Why couldn’t Dave or G-Man be the player, why’d he have to log in and go by Mr. Main Man Gordon and look at his model and see the... Ugh. Stupid thing to get upset about, it was a dumb thing to get upset about still, he knew that. Lot’s of people were named Gordon, it was a.. It was a fucking common name. It wasn’t like, a rare name. Just because he got reminded of One friend or whatever like- It’s a videogame. The guy’s name is Gordon Freeman. That’s just what his name is.

Ugh. Stupid fucking thing to get upset about.

The other two were still talking, but Benrey had zoned out. He turned in his chair and chucked the empty Goldfish bag to the trashcan in the corner of his room- it missed of course, but he could pick it up and put it in later. It was late. “ **hey guys i’m uh- i’m gonna log out** .” “Oh? Alright, sleep well.” “ _ Sleep well _ .” Benrey left the chat, and then sat in his seat.

Ugh. Jesus, it was a dumb thing to get upset about. He knew that.

“Mr. Gordon, what- wh-what are those Creatures??” Tommy’s voice was shaky as the 4 sat in a barricaded room. Benrey was holding the door shut, facing them. They had just encountered the first hostile mobs in the game, the like. Headcrabs, or whatever they were called.

“ **Uh. They’re like..** ” Benrey paused. He didn’t fucking know Half Life lore. “ **They’re like aliens, I think. Creatures for sure** .” The other 2 were in the room, Dr. Coomer and Dr. Kleiner, but they didn’t seem to talk much compared to Tommy. Hardly even reacted to seeing the hostile mobs in the first place, and silent now, sitting criss cross on the floor. Benrey made a note to tell Dave to program them to react and talk more.

“I-I .. Are they gonna.. Kill us??” It was a simple question, but it surprised Benrey to hear how.. Genuinely scared Tommy sounded. He had to remind himself, Tommy.. Tommy was acting on the belief that he and everything was real, and this Was his first time seeing any of those things, or seeing the Resonance Cascade, or seeing the dead bodies.. God, why’d they choose Half Life??? Why’d they choose such a violent game to test New Life in. Jesus.

“ **They.. uh, no I can. I’ll protect you** .” Benrey stumbled over his words, but he tried to sound genuine. “ **They’re.. Weak, I won’t let them attack you** .” That seemed to make Tommy calm down a little, but not by much. He should- maybe he should ask the others to make the scientists less afraid in general. Or able to actually fend for themselves, so they wouldn’t be so.. Panicked.

“M.. Mr. Gordon, I’m scared.” Another simple statement from Tommy, but it.. It felt like a sword through the heart. He. he knew they weren’t supposed to even spend that much time in this room, they needed to keep going now, but he couldn’t just let Tommy panic here. Tommy thought all of this was real, still. Benrey leaned down and took Tommy’s hands in his. Tommy looked up at him.

“ **When.. uh, when I’m scared, there’s some things I do to help myself calm down. Do you want to know some** ?” Tommy nodded. “ **Okay! Okay** .” Benrey leaned back, and let go of his hands. “ **Uh. Okay, okay, so, stimming- if you have nothing else, you can destress with just your hands. Clench and unclench them, move around the fingers quickly, you c** ..” This was hard. He wasn’t sure how to Describe stimming in words really, but he wanted to help. “ **You.. If you’re stressed, you can move your hands in a comforting way to help you feel grounded. You can always control your hands** .” 

Tommy was watching, and nodded. He tensed and untensed his hands, holding them close to his chest. Okay, good! Good. “ **You can.. You can count down from 10 also, breathe slowly, and.. Uh. Oh** !” Benrey went to rummage through his pockets, and then remembered he was wearing an HEV suit. “ **Oh.. I don’t have it now, but there are like. Little things specifically for stimming that you can turn and press and stuff. I-I have a few, I’ll show you when we get out of here** .”

When we get out of here? 

He.. He meant it as in like- He was still thinking of Tommy as human and trying to console him like he’d console someone in real life, but unless he asked G-Man and Dave to specifically program in a stupid little stim toy for him. Like what, he could get a pen? He could give Tommy a pen, maybe?   


Tommy.. Tommy seemed calmer though. It seemed to have worked. He.. The whole point of the experiment here was to teach Tommy, to help mold him into.. Something, and Benrey thought it’d be a good idea to teach him how to.. Self-regulate stress. He wanted to do something to help him be able to.. calm down, and hopefully this should help. 

“Th-Thank you Mr. Gordon. I’ll.. keep this in mind for when I’m scared again. Thank you.” Tommy was smiling again, and he held his hand in the other. Thank.. Thank god, Benrey thought. Tommy smiling felt like sunshine. “ **By the way you.. Uh, You don’t have to call me Mr. Gordon. It’s- it’s politer to say Mr. Freeman, I think** .” This was a lie, but he just didn’t want to have to hear Tommy say Gordon a million times. He’d probably forget it by the next trial.

“Oh, I’m sorry ! My bad, Mr. Freeman.” 

That trial lasted only a few more hours, before Dr. Coomer was shot by a soldier and bled out. He stayed silent through most of it too, just letting out prerecorded ‘scientist pain’ sounds.. Benrey felt glad they were resetting then. He didn’t want Tommy to remember the face he had made when he saw the fellow scientist fall, Benrey didn’t want Tommy to remember that fucking.. The fucking.. fear that was in his own eyes, the panic, how Tommy had reached for his friend before he hit the ground.. God. Why were they doing Half Life. Why couldn’t Gabe let them create new life in like, Animal Crossing. Why’d they have to set trials, training a new human from scratch, in this fucking.. bloodbath of a game.

-

Tommy wouldn’t answer Gordon, and he wouldn’t answer Benrey either. He was listening, of course, but he.. He seemed frozen, almost. Gordon took the gun from his hand delicately, like trying to steal something from the grip of someone sleeping, and opened the door to the dorm rooms again. He was happy to see Dr. Coomer and Bubby had fallen asleep in the time they’d been outside… Thank god.

He led Tommy over to the bunk bed opposite the one Gordon and Benrey had been sitting in before, and set him down. Tommy was there still, he was listening, Gordon just kinda.. Moved his limbs around like a doll to get him to sit. 

Tommy was silent. He stared down at the floor, sitting lopsidedly in the bed.

Gordon looked to Benrey, standing to the side of him. “D.. doyou have any fucking idea what to do rightnow because I gotta tell you  **_I_ ** am  _ blanking _ ” He whispered to the guard, quickly.

Benrey just watched Tommy, solemnly almost. “ **he.. he’s thinking. he’s goin’ through memories right now, i think** ”

“What?” Gordon hissed. “What does that even fucking mean?”

“ **he’s.. he’s thinking right now. give him a second** .”

-

After the first 3 trials, there was a lot to do.

“Tommy seems to be taking a lot from you, i noticed” read a message from Dave.

“ **yeah, is that not the point?** ”

Benrey was happy to see that Tommy had remembered the things he’d taught him about calming himself down, and they’d taken his advice to make the other two 1. More Talkative, and 2. More Dangerous. Dangerous in the sense of being able to defend themselves and Tommy, without needing as much of the players help, of course.

“He’s got a stutter now, did you notice that?”

That  _ was  _ something Benrey had taken note of, Tommy had seemed to mirror the way Benrey talked. He had a feeling G-Man found it annoying, but Dave thought it helped him sound more human. More natural. 

Benrey.. Benrey didn’t think it was Just from mirroring him. Tommy seemed to have a lot of thoughts all the time, his mind raced.. Really quick. And the stammer was just a side effect of the actual Fear Tommy felt in a lot of situations and just like.. How he talked. 

The fear. God, Benrey still felt.. He felt personally bad, even though  _ He  _ hadn’t chosen the game. He’d brought it up to Gabe, and he’d said some bullshit about how ‘they wanted to form a human from all kinds of situations, even pain’.. Benrey didn’t get that. They- they erased Tommy and the other’s memories after the resets anyway, he didn’t get why they made an AI just to like, immediately inflict images of all it’s friends dying onto it.

Tommy himself hadn’t died once yet, but it was bound to happen in one of the trials too. The thought of it made Benrey’s fucking skin crawl.

“ **heyy Tommy** !” Benrey loaded up the game. They weren’t gonna do another proper trial for a few days, but they were allowed to interact with the AI at any time to test their code, or whatever. 

Tommy smiled when he saw him. “H- Hello Mr. Freeman!”

“ **just Benrey’s fine. it’s not one of the full trials, you don’t have to be proper about it** .” They reset Tommy’s mind before the trial started, so Benrey could say his name. It wasn’t gonna matter. He had the item menu open now, looking for something he had asked Dave- Darnold, as Tommy knew him probably- to program in earlier that day.

“Y.. Your name is Benrey Freeman?” “ **wha** ?” Benrey looked up at him, and Tommy looked embarrassed. “Oh, I-I’m sorry, I just w-” “ **Just Benrey’s fine for now, i’ll go back to the gordos shit later. You don’t have to worry about it** .” “..Okay.”

Benrey found what he was scrolling for, and added it into the map. “ **Tommy!! Okay Tommy, I came in here to show you something! I got it for you** .” Tommy looked up, and Benrey presented the item, with a smile. “ **Ta da! It’s- it’s one of those little spinny things, I was talking about it earlier** !”

Benrey was holding a little modeled version of a spinner he had in real life, a little keychain with the Playstation logo on it. “ **Look,, you can attach it to something and- and spin it just with your finger while workin’ on something else** .”

He handed it to Tommy, who continued to just kinda.. Look at it. It looked like he was unsure of what exactly it. Was. 

“ **Spin it** !” Tommy looked up, a smile that seemed a little.. Forced. Benrey paused. Tommy could fake smiles? He could fake things? Tommy seemed to realize Benrey’s change of mood, and brought the spinner to his heart. “I-I’m sorry, thank you for the gift Mr. Benrey!!”

“ **I.. If you don’t want it, I can take it back** .” “No, no it’s good! I- I like it a lot, I just.. Was a bit confused.” 

“ **That;s fine, you c- here, let me show you** -” He took the keychain from Tommy’s hands, and spun it between his fingers for a second.. “ **D.. Does that make sense now** ?”

Tommy nodded. “.. Sure.” Benrey handed it back to him, but his mind was racing a bit. It sounded forced. It sounded like Tommy was bottling something up. Tommy could do that? The AI could lie? 

“ **Is.. is something wrong? actually** ” “No!! No, i..” 

Tommy was smiling again, sadly. It looked sad. Why did it look sad. “Thank you for the gift. Thank you for getting me something! Really.”

Benrey looked to him. “ **..You’re welcome. I’ll see you soon, Tommy** .” “I’ll see you soon!”

This little test was to see if the AI would carry over items between resets, but Benrey wasn’t thinking about the test’s results after he logged out of the game.

Tommy could fake things. Tommy could lie. Maybe Tommy could lie to Himself.

Or maybe Benrey was just looking too much into it. Maybe Benrey was just. Attached. And looking for validation and signs of rejection or whatever from.. The fucking robots.

God. Whatever, the.. The only thing to do was to wait for the next trial. For the next trial, and to see if the keychain carried over. Or if anything else did.

They’d been doing this for so long. Every day blended into each other. Or maybe Benrey just felt like that, having to redo the same scenario over and over and over again. Gordon Freeman, Suit Up, Resonance Cascade, see how long your team of 4 can last before somebody bleeds out. He had even suggested making the scientists immortal, or even just able to ‘respawn’, but G-Man said it would hurt the realism. God.

He didn’t want to just keep doing the same thing, over and over again, until one of them died. They’d never made it to the ‘end of the game’, if there even was one programmed in. He hated.. He hated seeing Tommy’s face. Tommy’s face when Benrey takes a bullet for him, when Dr. Coomer or Bubby- Oh. Oh yeah, that had been a development. The self made AI, randomly hacked together, wanted his own name like Tommy had. Or, the reasoning was something like that. Whatever, what was important was that Benrey was.. Benrey was tired of this fucking ai job. 

Maybe he should quit. Send a message to G-Man himself, or maybe just block and ghost the two. But..

He was attached to the project. Of course, he was fucking attached to the lines of code that cared about him, that called him his friend still, that cared when he was shot or ripped open or sliced.. God. Jesus. Not even mentioning the fact that it  _ fucking  _ hurt.

Tommy had carried over the spinner, and a few other items Benrey had given him later. When discrepancies came up over some items carrying over and some not- (for example, they had spawned a pen in his pocket before a reset, but after the reset the pen hadn’t spawned), they had found out that the spinner and the other items Benrey had given Tommy stayed not because of the items, but because they were important to the code of.. The code of Tommy’s memory of Benrey. Tommy’s code of remembering why they were friends.

Tommy considered them friends. Not even in the sense that he said that to him ingame, though he did often, but that it was in his code. It was in his code to be kind, to be caring, to be sympathetic and horrified at the horrors of death and Black Mesa or whatever, it was in his code to care. And they hadn’t programmed that in themselves, that was.. That was all Tommy.

It would be so much easier to leave if nobody cared.

Benrey had left people who didn’t care about him before, he’d done that countless times, but fuckin.. It was the Robot that he got emotional about. The goddamn 5 poly ‘Slick’ model.

Yay. G-Man and Dave certainly didn’t hire him ‘cause he was smart, did they? 

Yay. God.

If.. God, he wished they were like. Anything but classified computer code. He wished he could leave and bring them with him, get them out of that.. That hell-hole too, but that was. Stupid. He couldn’t just bring ol’ Tommster to life and play fuckin’ Mario Kart with him, he was an AI. Of Course, he was an AI.

And Benrey wasn’t.. Wasn’t fucking stupid enough to try to like, steal the AI out from under the other two’s nose. At least he wasn’t fucking dumb enough to do that.

-

Gordon was pacing the length of the dorm room. “He- Alright, you- he seems fine, he’s.. Alive obviously, but he. Listen it’s been like minutes I’m STARTING to get a bit worried. You understand that. You understand that, right Benrey?”

Benrey breathed out, teeth clenched. He had pulled out a stool and sat next to Tommy on the bed, staying by his side. “ **yeah. yeah, i heard your Panic dumbass . it’s Really helping me feel calm too** .”

Gordon gritted his teeth. “I’m Worried!! I’m fucking worried, you know that, first time I see Tommy in weeks and he’s fucking- he’s just like immediately out. You seem to know a LOT more then me right now and this is- this is After like 30 minutes of you giving me exposition, dude.”

Benrey let out a little snort. “ **exposition . yeah, i mean you’re right** ”

Gordon was not laughing. “ **..exposition** .”

“ **listen, i’m just saying- he’s going through. a Lot right now and i don’t just mean like, i don’t just mean like as in like how You;re going through a lot i mean. Literally, his brain is running like 324235 files all at once, i think. tommy is like, metaphorically overheating** .”

“Is he psychically overheating? Cause I- I think I fucking am.”

Benrey went to put a hand on Tommy’s forehead but recoiled a bit from.. From the dried blood on him. In his hair, and around his eyes. He lay a finger on his forehead. “ **tommy’s all cool here** .”

Benrey looked over, and saw Gordon was still.. Very panicked. Very scared looking. Benrey felt a tinge of pain- and then shrugged it off. It.. god. 

Even still, it.. It hurt him to see people he cared about sad, huh? Even when it wasn’t fucking real. Even when they weren’t even his fucking friends.

“ **d.. ya want me to Sweet Voice, king** ?”

Gordon stepped back, and put his hand up. “What??? Why would I Ever ask you to voluntarily do the fucking orb thing wh-  _ did you call me ‘king’ _ ??”

**“i just mean as like. Just to calm you down. not into your Mouth or anything i don’t know why you suddenly started Slurpin’ on em. that was on you** .” Gordon pouted. “That was Not on me.”

“ **it’s a yes or no question, king** .” “Why are you calling me that.” “ **what d’you want me to call you? i thought king would be an improvement** .”

“Gordon. You can call me my Fucking name.”

Benrey frowned. “ **Wow, you really kin the half life guy hard huh? i told you my secret backstory, you don’t have to keep pretending to be mr. freeman. what’s your real name** ?”

Gordon looked taken aback. “Wh- Gordon Is my real name, I’ll have you fucking know! I- Freeman isn’t my Last name, that’s the. The ‘Half Life’ Guy. B-” “ **wait, your name is actually gordon** ???”

Gordon squinted. “Don’t act like that’s a bigger revelation to you then like, any single thing you’ve said to me today.” “ **your name’s Gordon** .” “My name’s Gordon. I’m Not fucking telling you my last name, Especially now that I know you- you can find my house. Freak.” “ **you’re the one who said you’d come to My house** !”

Benrey groaned.  **“listen dude, the question stands. D’ya want me to sweet voice ? it’ll make you feel calmer, promise** .” Gordon sighed, exasperated. “Sure. Fine. See if i.. See if I Fuckin’ care.”

He plumped down on the bed, and Benrey cleared his throat.

Benrey, Gordon and Tommy would all agree the song was beautiful. 

Blues, purples and muted grays, the orbs flew from Benrey’s mouth and up to the ceiling, lighting up the room. 

Tommy looked at them like they were stars. Benrey was looking at Tommy. Gordon was looking right from him to make sure Dr. Coomer and Bubby wouldn’t fucking wake up.

“B-”

Benrey stopped the song and stared wide-eyed at Tommy. He was talking again, he was talking.

“Purple ...like dusk means.. Means You’re Okay, the blue’s and grays.. M-means”

Tommy put a hand to his head. “Oh, it mixes if there’s 3 colors, right? It- It means’ a lot when it’s 3 of them.” “ **no, no, you’re right! You’re on the right path** !” Benrey tried to sound encouraging, while not wanting to come too close to Tommy. He didn’t want to scare him again.

“Blue.. blue, purple and gray. You- you care for us, and you hope that we’re okay. You hope that.. me and Mr. Freeman are doing okay.”

Tommy turned to look at Benrey. Benrey was trying not to cry again. He was really trying.

-

G-Man had been fucking furious with him. He’d-he’d never seen him this angry this- this emotional about  _ Anything  _ really but.. But it had made sense. Benrey had tried to steal the _entirety_ of their fucking research for the past Year. Probably longer, for Gabe himself.

Benrey.. Benrey wasn’t sure why Dave had saved his ass. Taken half of the blame, even though he was innocent, Benrey wasn’t sure he even deserved to still be working there. He’d.. he’d fucked up. He’d almost fucked up ‘the experiment’, ‘the research’ of course, but he also.. He also fucked up the actual AIs. He fucked them up Immensely.

Dr.. Dr. Coomer seemed the most affected by it, but all of them had.. Had issues with reality, with knowing that they were… were characters in a game, that they Could escape, he.. He shouldn’t have fucked with anything. He shouldn’t of, he really shouldn’t of .. G-Man was gonna fix it, though. Whether that ended up being a Full erase in the end or something akin to it, he.. They were gonna need to erase over a Lot. Benrey had.. Benrey had really fucked up.

He was in game now to try to help the 'worldbuilding'. Try to help the world seem.. Seem real to them, even though it wasn’t. G-Man was only convinced because Dave had done it before, stood in and pretended to be a NPC scientist, but Dave was a much better actor than he was. Benrey’s attempt at being a scientist almost immediately failed, so he just used the security guard model now. He thought it suited him more than the player character model anyway.

The player.. The player. They didn’t know what to do about the player. They really fucking didn’t.

If they were gonna continue trials with their 3 man team, which G-Man seemed Very opposed to, then.. What, Dave would have to do it? But then there’d be 1 less person there to make sure things didn’t get fucked up, that the AI didn’t get broken any more.. And there was  _ No  _ universe where G-Man would let Benrey be Gordon Freeman again. They’d.. They were putting the player role on hold, for now.

Benrey walked in game, in his muted blue security suit, heavily. He.. he tried not to interact with the AI’s unless they interacted with him first, he didn’t want to fuck anything else up.

Someone walked up to him, labcoat, pale red shirt- God.

“Hello! I’m Tommy, you’re- you’re Benrey, right?” Benrey let out a quiet sigh, and then turned up to face Tommy. This model was a lot shorter than the last one but it.. It fit Benrey’s real height more, at least. Not that he needed anymore ‘Realism' in this fucking game. “ **yyep. that’s me** .”

“I- I work in the HR department, and I wanted to get to know all of the people here! Would- Wh-What kind of things do you like?” 

HR Department? That was a new part of his backstory. Tommy seemed nervous to be talking to someone new. Hah. He was wringing his hands, holding them both close to his chest.. God. Yeah, of course he had remembered that.

“ **i. uhhhhh games? i like vidya games and like** .” Huh. Did Benrey have any fucking hobbies other than getting attached to stupid games? “ **ducktales? i guess? I like. shows** .”

“Oh!! I-I also like games!” Yeah. “Do- do you mean l- oh, you said Video games, I like those too, but I was thinking- I was thinking like Board games. And those.. Beyblades, and stuff.”

Tommy scratched the back of his head. “I know.. I know that’s a bit silly, but I think they’re cool! I like- I like em.” “ **i don’t think it’s silly. that’s great that you like something** .”

Tommy looked up, a bit surprised, and smiled. God. Benrey had missed his smile.

“We- We should play some time! You-You can borrow one of my ‘blades if you need to, we- I got an arena! I got my own arena, we can just play together then!” Benrey smiled. It felt heavy. “ **sure man, we should play together** .”

Tommy waved, and started to walk away, before Benrey.. Caught him. Grabbed his hand as he started to walk away, and then let it go. God that was- that was a bit of a creepy thing to do. He just.. He just wanted to say something before Tommy left. Who knew if this was gonna get resetted at the end of the day.

“ **what.. sorry, what.. Drove you to me? Or uh- are you just asking everybody here** ?”

Tommy looked confused, then smiled warmly at him, again. “You looked like someone I could be friends with! Even- Even though you’ve got a bit of a scary guard thing going on. You- you looked welcoming to me. I don’t know!”

Benrey smiled again. It was solemn. “ **oh.. Okay. thank you Tommy, see you around** .”

Tommy smiled. “See you around!”

Tommy sat in the breakroom, looking over the billboard hung up there and the papers hung onto it. He couldn’t make out anything, but he knew they were words.

He knew they were words, why would someone just post empty pieces of paper onto the board?? They had to be words, that was the only thing that made sense. Why.. why couldn’t he-

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned around. Benrey!

Benrey was there, looking up at the board with him. “ **whatcha reading** ?” Tommy smiled. “I-I was just Trying to read it actually, but i- I can’t.. Make it out, can you read it Benrey?”

Benrey looked at it. “ **it. uuuuuuuuuuuhh it says here that you’re Cool** .” Tommy laughed. “That’s not what it says!” Benrey smiled.

The first ‘new player’ was coming in later today. It.. Of course, everytime was Tommy’s First Time Through Hell but this time especially would be the first time Tommy went through it with the New New AI. And..

It would be the first time Benrey wouldn’t be with them. Wouldn’t be by his side.

Benrey agreed to be an ‘npc’, maybe an antagonist if G-Man wanted. Once this reset started, Benrey wouldn’t be allowed to talk with them or go with them in the way a Player would. It would just be up to this.. New nobody. What if he immediately just fucked up and got hostile? What if Tommy got hurt and it fucked up.. it fucked with his AI even more? What if.. 

Benrey was always there for them, no matter how much.. Even how much he ended up Hurting them in the long run or whatever, he could trust himself to keep them safe a Little bit, at least. Or at least when he didn’t, they’d reset fast.

“ **hey, hey Tommy** .” “Yeah?” “ **d’ya wanna learn a secret code? to communicate** ?” Tommy looked confused. “I- Can I not communicate with you just fine, Benrey?” 

“ **You can! you can, it’s just- it’s- it’ll be a.. way to differentiate me** .” That sounded weird. “ **it’s just something cool i can do, that i wanna show you cause you’re my friend! like.. Like a secret handshake! we can have a little secret handshake, but-but it’s all code** .”

Tommy smiled. “I.. I do like a good code.” “ **yeah** !!”

“ **ok. ok, so- so it’s easy to remember too, because it’s color coded. it- you can make it into little rhymes too, it’s color coded and it’s got rhymes… and it’s like a little song** .”

“It’s a song?” “ **yeah, it’s like a song.. but i’m no great singer. you just have to trust me on that part** .” “I bet you’re a wonderful singer, Benrey!” Benrey smiled. “ **you can bet, then** .”

And they stayed in that breakroom until the new player logged in, associating the different color combos with different little rhymes, making up functions and processes and similes, like Tommy loved to do, writing it down in a little notebook. And they made the system together. They could install the function, the ‘wowazela’ or whatever later, but Tommy and him had made the function together.

And they’d made it in a ‘bonding activity’ or whatever, so he’d probably remember the code. Good. He needed some kind of code that would last between resets. And.. and when he implemented it in an actual way, it was something he and Tommy worked on together. It was.. It was stupid, but his team had spent enough time Making and Running Tommy’s code. Now Tommy got to have a part in the code creation too.

And they’d made it together. Hopefully from then on, a little sign, a little signal- That x whatever model Benrey was in was a friend. Or was hurt, or was hungry.. It was a little signal. That’s all it was for.

-

Tommy was leaning on him. Gordon was asleep, passed out in Benrey’s bed of the bunk. Benrey was done singing, but the colors still lit up the room, orbs floating on the ceiling of the room.

“ **..** ”

“..”

“ **are you doing okay, buddy** ?”

Tommy buried his head farther into Benrey’s shoulder. 

“I don’t know. I-I don’t think so.”

Benrey nodded.

“I. ..God.”

“ **yeah** .” “Yeah.”

Tommy broke away from Benrey and sprawled out onto the bed, hands over his face.

“. **.yeah** .”   
Tommy lifted his hands, and looked to him. “Are you gonna log out soon?”

“ **I don’t know. I-i don’t have anyplace to be, fucking Obviously, i-i can stay awake if you want. it doesn’t matter** .”

“Do you dream?”

Benrey looked to him. “ **Personally? just as me not Often, cause i- I don’t really. Sleep for long enough to. dream. usually.** ” Tommy smiled sadly. “When you do, is it nice?”

“ **do You dream** ?” Tommy looked to the ceiling, the orbs still illuminating the room. “...Yeah.”

“ **Huh. are Yours nice** ?” “Not lately. They-They usually are, though.”

“ **do.. Can i help you get a nice one** ?” “I think the sweet voice might help, maybe. You already sung.”

They sat with each other.

“...I won’t remember this at the end. They;ll reset me, won’t they?”

“ **they.. the plan is to reset you at the end always anyways, that one wasn’t really gordon’s fault, or anything** .”

“...Yeah.”

Tommy rolled over to his side. He clutched the sides of his labcoat. “I hope I have a dream tonight.”

“ **a good one** ?”

“A One.”

Benrey nodded. “ **i hope you have a One too, man** .”

Tommy lay there in bed, gripping tight on his blood soaked labcoat. Getting the new, newly made, newly spawned in bed’s sheet’s dirty. Eventually, he loosened and Benrey saw that he was unconscious. He logged out too, ragdolling in the chair next to Tommy’s bed.

One by one, the orbs on the ceiling grew dim and faded out, until the room was in darkness again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would you believe me if i told you it wasn't This chapter that made my brother cry, but the next one


	11. Chapter 11

Tommy supposed this was his ‘dream’. That’s what he had called them before anyway, but now, he.. He guessed this was just where his models state was when no one was online, or whatever. Whatever. 

It was nice to have some silence. Everything was silent.

So.. so.

He wasn’t… real. He wasn’t a person. He was a computer. An AI.

Neither were.. Neither were Dr. Coomer or Dr. Bubby. And this- this place wasn’t real.

It was an experiment. And he was the lab rat.

Tommy just sat in the silence. He sat in the dark, looking down at his hands. 

It was just all an experiment. It didn’t matter.

That relieved him just a little.. Before he felt the dread come back.

He.. he didn’t want to admit that that explained things. That it explained a lot of things. That everything.. That everything slotted into place like pouring water into a glass.

He… Man. God.

He sat there in the darkness.

God. ..God.

He tried to get up, maybe walk around the empty black space, but his legs stuck to the ground, like they were glued to the darkness. Huh ?

He brought his hand to the ground, and when he tried to lift it he couldn’t. It was stuck too. Fuck- Okay, Okay, he just had one hand now.

He reached in his pocket for his phone, maybe he- maybe he could Call someone for help, h- His pockets were empty. He didn’t have- he didn’t have his crowbar, or his gun, or his phone or his passport.. They were Unloaded right now, it seemed. Fuck. Fuck.

The sense of pause, of quiet in the void was quickly being replaced with rising fear. Something was behind him. Or around him, somewhere, he- he had to get out. He had to get out of this fucking place right now.

He- he was still stuck, shoes and the palm of his hand completely black now and- and the only way to get out would be for the player to boot up the game. Call the AI’s into existence again, when they were.. When they were needed. Fuck. Fuck.

He needed to wake up on his own. He needed- he needed to jolt himself awake without - Without Mr. Freeman. Without Gordon.

He tried- he tried hitting himself in the chest, surviving hand pulled into a fist.. Pinching himself, would pinching work? He.. he tended to bite his nails so he couldn’t scratch himself. He couldn’t draw blood, his own blood anyway.

Fuck. Fuck, he needed to wake up. He needed to wake up. The darkness was crawling up his arm now, his labcoat’s sleeves, it was up to his forearm- It was right where Mr. Freeman’s arm had been cut off, earlier.

He had to wake up. He had to wake up. His hand was on his head now, his eyes were shut close, teeth clenched eardrums Blaring, and- and he saw light.

Teal light, orbs. 

He opened his eyes to see Benrey standing over him, singing light blue sweet voice, holding Tommy’s arm down in one hand and holding a knife in the other. Tommy was stuck to the bed with the orbs, cocooning his entire body except his face, and Benrey.. Benrey was looking at him with shock. Benrey was on his bed, cocooning him, and holding a knife in the air with shock.

“ **w. you’re not sup- you’re not supposed to be awake** .” Fuck. Fuck. How- Gordon wasn’t on, how was Tommy awake?

Tommy was squirming. He was trying to move now, god f- god god he just wanted to do it quick Tommy wasn’t  _ supposed  _ to wake up-

“B !” Benrey winced at his voice. He was panicking. “Benrey, w.. What-” “ **quiet. Quiet don’t- you’ll wake the others. be quiet** .” Fuck. Fuck.

He put a hand over Tommy’s mouth. Did he carry through with it? If he wanted to, he had to do it Now- Tommy would forget anyway, he’d forget anyway wouldn’t he? 

He was still singing, he had still been singing the light blue orbs, and he wiped them away from the corners of his mouth now. Fuck. Fuck. Tommy wasn’t- Tommy wasn’t supposed to wake up.

Fuck. Fu-OW! Shit, Tommy had- Tommy had bit the palm of his hand. He jerked his hand back instinctively, and Tommy tried again to struggle out. He got his left arm free a little- Benrey grabbed it with his now free hand. Fuck.

“Benrey, y- you’re trying to kill me ?” Fuck. It was.. God, his voice was so.. weak.

“ **i’m. i’m just gonna end the cycle, okay?? Gordon- gordon’s not online, coomer and bubby respawn, it had to be you i’m sorry i- it’ll only hurt for a second. then the new run’ll start. g-man’ll start a new run, without.. without fucking gordos** .”

Tommy was trying to get out again. He- he was crying now. Benrey wasn’t sure if he was crying too.

“ **listen, i-it’ll just be quick, you won’t remember it. don’t-don’t you want to go back to that? To not having to f- to fucking remember** ?”

Tommy, still trying to break out, turned his face away from him. Tears rolling.. Tears rolling down his face.

Benrey’s grip loosened. “ **it won’t hurt. i promise** .”

Tommy didn’t look at him. His head was turned to the right, looking towards.. Towards where Gordon and the others were sleeping. Blissfully sleeping, cozy in their beds.   
“ **are.. are you actually gonna tell me you Don’t want to forget** ?”

Benrey was sitting on his knees, on Tommy’s chest. Both were still.

A few of the light blue orbs encasing the room started to dim.

Suddenly, Tommy’s hand jerked free of Benrey’s grip, a circle of blood staining it from where Tommy had bitten the hand earlier, and shoved itself into Tommy’s pocket. Before Benrey could process what was going on, Tommy had drawn his gun and shot him square in the chest.

Benrey didn’t move. He let go of the knife and touched his chest- blood. Blood, yeah.

Fuck. Fuck.

Tommy shot him again, 3 ear-piercing shots- (god, he was gonna Wake up the others, that’s why Benrey had chosen a knife)-, and Benrey fell off the bed. 

He got caught in the orbs- god god they were fucking sticky, huh.

He lay on the ground, expression blank.

Body staining the orbs red.

Tommy- Tommy struggled out of his trap and brought his knees to his chest, sitting against the headboard of the bed. He kept his gun ready, but Benrey didn’t move again.

Benrey had tried to kill him. Benrey had tried to ‘silently’ kill him, to ‘reset the cycle’.. God. Maybe.. He didn’t even know or not if he…. If he Wanted the cycle reset, he needed.. He’d think about that later, he had to think about getting Benrey not to stab him Now.

He had been so calm about it, too.

Had Benrey done that before?

Benrey was right, he wouldn’t have remembered if he had.

Tommy got up from the bed. He was.. He was covered in blood again, and glowing light blue from the sweet voice. He had mistaken it for teal earlier, but it was pure light blue. The cocooning one.

Fuck. Fuck.

He needed- Benrey was dead, for certain. For now.

Did he.. No, he couldn’t dispose of the body. It was still covered in the orbs and where- where would he bring it?

He just needed to get out of here. He needed to go. 

He needed to go again, before the other’s woke up. Before Benrey respawned. He'd respawn after all, right?

God.. he didn’t want to leave the group, again. He’d just found them again.. Bubby and Coomer hadn’t even seen him back. They’d just been sleeping the whole time.

He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to leave them.

He looked down at his hands.. He had to. 

He looked around the room, put his gun back into his pocket, and wiped the tears from his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this'll be the last chapter for a while! i like working in chapters in like bursts of 6 where i can edit them all a lot before posting and i just had a big back log, so yeah the fic'll be on Hiatus for a while while i write more!! i'll be back though, i hope this sufficiently Hurt You and thanks for all the comments :l> see you soon!


	12. Update! 11/10/20

hello everyone! i am so fucking sorry i did not mean to not update for 120 daysKNBJHVGC

i am still working on IAPRMR !!! took a bit of a break as im sure you can see. but i have up to chapter 16 written and i have a plan and hope to wrap it up either by chapter 20 or 25 . i want it to be an even number dont worry that means nothing chapter 10 is 1 chapter but the length of like half the fic i do what i want

SO! i'm gonna wait until i finish the fic or at least the first draft of it, i like uploading the chapters daily all in one bunch and not publishing one and then having to write the next, so it'll probably be a little bit until i come back and wrap it up but it WILL come back. i just wanted to make an update so people dont think i just Left

i do not know. ao3 i dont know if makin a little update chapter is normal i dont think it is . but its always quotev in my mind baby

IN THE MEANTIME ! my tumblr blog is @micer2012 if you want to talk to me or message and see art i do or whatever, i also have a 69 song inspiration playlist that inspiared like 90% of the fic would you guys be interested in seeing that etiher now or after the fic ends?? probably just on my tumbr . i have 3 different versions of the fnaf song i got no time on it the i got not time / i cant fix you mashup was what made me make benrey an important character. legitamtely

SO!! SORRY FOR NOT UPDATIN' ITLL BE A BIT MORE. but i WILL get it fniished ive got DARNOLD comin ive got FORZEN', ive got the KIST, ive got FINAL BOSS TOMMY DESIGN. legitmately like 2 months was just tihnking of a sick final boss tommy design youll love it it rules hes like a blood ferret .

ALSO ILL PROBABLY DELETE THIS. WHEN I HAVE THE NEXT CHAPTERS UP I JUST WANTED TO GIVE AN UPDATE!!! its like midnight the day after my bithday i just wanna be polite. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR NICE COMMENTS................I DONT REPLY TO ALL OF THEM BUT YOUR COMMENTS MAKE ME SO HAPPYYYYY i reread the cmments on this fic and i walk around my entire room for like 20 minutes thank you so much. THANK U FOR WAITING !!! WILL UPDATE SOON. - della !


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